[Slartibartfarst]

This is an odd sounding question given my guitar, but I'm looking for a neck humbucker to reproduce the gorgeous tone Santana has on Samba Pa Ti. Unlike his mahogany PRS, I'm using an LTD M-1000 E (alder with a maple set-thru neck) with a Floyd Rose bridge. I realise it's entirely the wrong guitar to get me that tone and I will probably end up with a tone that's a bit brighter, but is there a DiMarzio pickup that will get me close to that tone, or at least in the ballpark? I'm putting a Super Distortion in the bridge.

[buddroyce]

If anything I think you can get away with a warmer sounding pickup like an Air Norton or a Transition Neck.

[darkbluemurder]

The studio version of "Samba Pa Ti" sounds like a strat to me, except for a small lick in the second verse.

Cheers Stephan 

[Slartibartfarst]

I should have been more specific about era!

I'm thinking more about his later tone, such as from the video 'Live in Mexico'. I realise that a lot of the time when he plays Samba Pa Ti, he uses the bridge pickup and rolls the tone back quite a lot, but as I'm using a Super Distortion in the bridge, I assume a suitable neck pickup might get me there better. I love that rich, warm, creamy tone he has but I don't mind if the pickup is a bit brighter as I also like the neck tones that Dave Murray gets from Iron Maiden when he was using proper humbuckers. He also has a lovely creamy and fluid tone so I was hoping I could find a pickup that could do Dave Murray and then get in the ballpark of Santana by rolling the tone back a bit. I'm not a guy who gets hung up on reproducing the exact tone, I just want to get in the ballpark.

I was thinking a softer magnet might be the way to go, like alnico 2 or 4 but DiMarzio just don't seem to offer anything like that. One option is to go with the Seymour Duncan AII Pro if DiMarzio don't make anything that will do the same job. I've also toyed with having a pickup made for me that is alnico 2 but using more modern 43AWG wire instead of 42AWG to give it a more focused tone. This basic formula works really well on the Bare Knuckle Emerald neck pickup, which is alnico 4, so I thought I'd try the same thing with alnico 2.

[buddroyce]

Hhmmm.. Have you considered the Bluesbucker at all?
It might get you in that ball park you're looking at.

[greenlion]

Creamy neck tones without getting too muddy that also holds up to higher gain settings sounds like a perfect job for the Liquifire Neck.