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The Pickup Place / Re: Dimarzio LiquiFire Review

« on: July 12, 2024, 07:54:10 AM »

I like the Liquifire in the neck of Ibanez RG's and a PRS SE245 I have. Another neck pickup that is actually really similar, but a tad smoother is the Gravity Storm neck.

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The Pickup Place / Re: PAF pickups that are close in brightness to singles?

« on: July 01, 2024, 11:19:25 PM »

I don't know. I have the Air Classic set in 2 guitars, one Les Paul and one Paul Gilbert Ibanez RG. That humbucker set is very bright in both guitars, rivaling the single coils in my Strat.
Have you checked the pot values in your guitar with a multimeter?

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups for dark guitar

« on: July 01, 2024, 04:20:26 PM »

Well, the PATB-3 isn't going to fix your problem. Probably not the Custom5 either. If you want brighter tone, the Duncan Jazz Set, or Full shred set. In Dimarzios, the Fred, or Paf Pro for the bridge and a Humbucker from Hell for the neck.

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The Pickup Place / Re: PAF pickups that are close in brightness to singles?

« on: July 01, 2024, 04:14:08 PM »

I don't know where you can still find them, but they make pickup rings that allowed you to put a single coil pickup in the middle of where the humbucker usually sits without modifying the guitar. I used to have one in the neck of a 2-humbucker Jackson because I could never find a neck humbucker I liked for it. If you are really into the single coil sound, that might be the way to go.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Input

« on: March 16, 2024, 09:17:45 PM »

Depends on what tones you are looking for.
Dimarzios seem to work well with Ibanez RG's.
I like the:
Crunch Lab / Liquifire set
Air Zone / Paf Pro set
Fred / Paf Joe set
Gravity Storm Set

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The Pickup Place / Re: Gravity Storm Neck in an HSS?

« on: January 06, 2024, 08:05:07 PM »

In my experience, almost any humbucker in the bridge is going to overpower pickups like the Area67 or Area58 in the neck/middle. Even humbuckers like the PAF Pro and Fred overpower them and sound unbalanced. I have had more luck with the Cruiser Bridge in the neck, or an Area 61, or a Virtual Vintage 54 Pro. I use the same resistor trick on the singles to let me use them with 500k pots.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Revisiting the Super D

« on: November 29, 2023, 08:35:20 PM »

Those older PRS Santana SE's sound great after a pickup swap. I have the Duncan Seth Lover set in mine, and it sounds more like the classic "Gibson" PAF tones in my head than either of my actual Gibsons.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Bridge HB to tame bright Basswood guitar?

« on: October 21, 2023, 09:24:35 PM »

For Basswood? The Dimarzio Airzone. Balances well with the Paf Pro neck.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Goodbye HFH

« on: August 07, 2023, 09:23:50 AM »

I don't know how many times I have installed the HFH in some guitar, initially liked it, and then removed it several weeks later because it is just anemic and somewhat boring. I appreciate the clean nature of it, and the tight low end, but always find myself wanting just a little bit "more of everything" out of it. I still have it though, because if I ever get a Tele with a neck humbucker, I'm going to try it in there.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Review of Dimarzio's Occult Classic 7-String Set

« on: August 06, 2023, 01:01:35 PM »

Dimarzio Occult Classic 7-string Pickup Set:

Bridge: Sounds and feels like a more overall-balanced Super Distortion with a slightly tighter bass end. It thrives on higher gain, and has a bit of hair to the tone like the Super D. Every string has good balance in the overall sound of a chord. Often the middle few strings on a 7-string can sonically blend together and lose their individuality, especially in chords, but that is not the case here. The output readings that Dimarzio publishes for this set is accurate. The bridge is noticeably more powerful than the Neck. If you like the old-school "Dimarzio Thing" that a lot of their pickups have (think Super-D, Tone Zone, Fred, Air Zone) then you will probably like this pickup. If you hate every one I just mentioned, then it may not be for you.

Neck- The neck sounds and feels like the Dimarzio PAF Pro and Humbucker-from-Hell had a baby together, and it is this pickup. It keeps the tighter low-end of the Humbucker from Hell, but has some of that glassy single coil character of the Paf Pro on the top end. Chugging on the low end of my 7-string, if you switch from the bridge p'up to the neck p'up it sounds like you just switched from running series to parallel on the same pickup. Very similar, with just a bit of the tonal edge sanded off. Playing solos on up toward the higher end of the fretboard, the neck has a very different tone than the bridge. Up high, the bridge pickup is more like a Super-D or a hairier grittier Tone Zone, but the neck has that brighter glassy strat like tone, like the Paf Pro. The neck pickup is also very chimey clean, and kinda makes me think that is what it was mainly designed for. I don't play a lot of clean stuff on my Ibanez, but it works well for that sort of pristine chimey clean setting.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Review of Dimarzio's Occult Classic 7-String Set

« on: August 06, 2023, 12:36:55 PM »

I have had the set installed for a month or so, so I thought I would update the title and add my review of the pickup set.
I have the Occult Classic set in a 26.5 scale Ibanez RG with Swamp Ash body and Maple neck.
I had the Ionizer set in the guitar previously and thought they were great, but maybe a bit too clinical and precise for that guitar, which is already bright and clean sounding.
Keep in mind that I play mostly old-school metal, Hair Metal, and Nili Brosh / Guthrie Govan / Andy Timmons / Marco Sfogli shred kinda stuff. I don't really have a good feel for how well these pickups would work for death metal chugging or Djent.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Any experience with Dimarzio's Occult Classic 7-String Set?

« on: May 27, 2023, 08:00:06 PM »

Finally decided to buy a set and find out myself. Will post a report after I have test driven them for a week or so.

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The Pickup Place / Review of Dimarzio's Occult Classic 7-String Set

« on: February 16, 2023, 09:48:36 PM »

The description of this new set sounds like something I would like, but I haven't heard anyone say anything about them yet. Anyone know anything beyond the ad copy?

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The Pickup Place / Re: Neck Pickup

« on: February 13, 2023, 03:50:54 PM »

The Super2 meshes REALLY well with the Super Distortion bridge. That is its strength and its weakness. If you don't like a lot of tonal difference between the bridge and neck pickup, it is the perfect set for you. If you do like a lot of difference between the two (like the 498t/490r set) then you may be bored with the Super D / Super 2 set. The PAF pro is the other pickup I see paired with the Super D a lot, and they do work well together. The PAF Pro's bottom end can be kinda squishy on the lower notes while the Super 2 keeps it tighter. The PAF Pro is a clearer pickup for cleans. The PAF Joe ion the other hand may be too polite to mesh well with the Super D. Something like the Liquifire might  work with the Super D. I think you are right about the Air Classic being underpowered compared to the Super D.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Mellowing out Air Norton neck in Charvel So-Cal?

« on: January 01, 2023, 09:55:25 PM »

You want to mellow-out the Air Norton in the neck because it is too bright???
You want to play bass guitar then. Put down the guitar and start playing bass.

I can't think of any neck pickup I have ever played that was less bright and less mellow than the Air Norton.
The only thing I can think that could do to round off a tiny bit of high end is to wire it in parallel That would shave off a tiny bit of output too, but not much.