[gregr]

I’ve always liked the idea of a Lace Sensor Purple/Emerald Dually in the neck position.

There isn’t much in the way of demos of the humbucker-sized Fantom P90, but based on one by Phillip McKnight it sounds really good. The spec suggests it’s a bit hot but if the sole reason is to get a noiseless P90, I think it might be the better option.

[darkbluemurder]

To summarize my experiences with this pickup in the neck position, these are the situations where I think it excels:

1) HSH - here it offers both convincing humbucker and single coil tones in the neck and great combinations with the middle single and also with the split bridge humbucker.

2) 24 fret guitars where you want the inside coils to split. In that case install the Bluesbucker with the screw coil facing the bridge.

3) Any guitar where you want good humbucker and single coil tones from the neck. If you combine this with a bridge humbucker that splits to the bridge side coil you get a nice in between tele-like tone with both humbuckers split.

Some caveats:

1) Since the Bluesbucker has one active coil and one significantly weaker coil, it should not be phase switched - use the bridge pickup instead.

2) For the same reason it would not be my first choice for PRSi with rotary switches or any 24 fret guitar that is set up for inside coils and outside coils split - depending how you orient the pickups, one of the positions will be significantly weaker than the other.

Cheers Stephan

[gregr]

’ve always been intrigued by this pickup. Is there anything special that allows it to perform better in split mode than a more traditional humbucker? Do you know the DCR and wire gauge of the active coil?

[mmmguitar]

Is there anything special that allows it to perform better in split mode than a more traditional humbucker?

The screw coil is 7k, with a pair of ceramic magnets the same dimensions as humbucker spacer bars, of the same polarity, touching each side of the screws. The slug coil is 3k, with a spacer-sized magnet of opposing polarity; for humcancelling. The slugs are either unmagnetized or nearly so; so the coil is a poor transducer - The slug coil is essentially there only for humbucking. Think of the Bluesbucker as a hot noiseless 7k single coil in a humbucker size housing (with its dummy coil adjacent, rather than stacked beneath it).

It's a very clever design; and I lament that Dimarzio didn't do more with it. A comparable design would be Dean Zelinsky's Sidekick/TruTap humbuckers; which are similarly unbalanced for strong splitting.

[gregr]

So it’s similar to a typical ceramic single coil.

It’s interesting that the screw coil was the one chosen to be the active coil, whereas humbuckers are typically split so that only the slug coil is active.

FWIW, no magnet is required for hum cancellation. Also, traditional humbucker slugs are made of steel which can only hold an extremely weak charge and are easily demagnetized, as opposed to Alnico rods used in single coils.

[darkbluemurder]

It’s interesting that the screw coil was the one chosen to be the active coil, whereas humbuckers are typically split so that only the slug coil is active.

That is correct, and I can only guess that this was chosen as this coil (in a 22 fret guitar) is closer to the typical strat neck position than the screw coil. In my 24 fret guitar I rotated the pickup so that the screw coil is on the inside since I wanted the inside coils active in split mode.

Cheers Stephan

[LPBII]

If you have one of these in the neck location of a guitar, do yourself a favor and try playing SRV's version of Little Wing. 

[darkbluemurder]

If I tried to play that probably both Hendrix and SRV would have broken down on the floor laughing