[darkbluemurder]

DLX Plus neck model: removed the bridge side screws, wired the pickup in parallel with a 250k load and a cap to ground. I am still experimenting with the value of the cap - 0.001uf leaves it too bright, 0.0032 (that is 0.001 plus the tone control with a 0.0022 cap rolled down) gets a very P90 like tone but without the hum. Not quite there yet but sounds very promising.

Cheers Stephan

[darkbluemurder]

After testing this for a while I will put the screws back in. Taking them out causes a too large volume drop to my ears when used clean.

[darkbluemurder]

OK I put the screws back in but screwed them as low as they would go, and that was the ticket. Beautiful cleans with the tone control up, a biting but not harsh overdriven tone with the tone control up and a smooth tone with the tone control down. Even though it is not exactly like a P90 it sounds great in its own right. Experiment finished with success.

Cheers Stephan

[RayBarbeeMusic]

I wonder whether the Virtual Hot PAF would benefit from this in the same way - anybody tried it?

Cheers Stephan

Yes. 

I also have a VHPAF with A3 in the bridge of a strat.  Marries well with the Area 67s in neck/middle for a balanced output, very nice vintage kind of sound.

[RayBarbeeMusic]

I tryed your mod on my Les Paul : Super 2 neck pup, poles under the 3 bass strings removed. Works great as expected. Thanks for that awesome trick !

Actually this pickup has a PAF style cover installed, and I wonder what would be the result if I remove the poles which are hidden under the cover instead of the visible ones.
What do you think ?

Works even better as the exposed pole coil gives more high end.  Also "looks stock".  Works even mo better if you put the exposed pole side toward the bridge. 

[RayBarbeeMusic]

I have to give this mod a try sometime. Sounds promising.

As for removing the poles under the cover, those are typically slugs and not screw poles so you're going to have a much harder time with those since they can't easily be screwed out. Worth a try though. Let us know if if you attempt it and it's results

On a dual screw coil pickup easy either way, but almost as easy with slugs.  The slugs tap out of the coil very easily with gentle push from a punch.   With a cover on you can't tell it's not stock, except for the lack of mud.  Actually works better knocking out the slugs as that coil is darker and the screw coil will have more sparkle anyway.   Also, you can equal out your string volume by adjusting the screws; if you remove screws and leave slugs, well, not as easy to equal out your string volume.

[RayBarbeeMusic]

For those who have an issue doing the pole removal thing on pickups due to looks, I may have a source on 316 stainless screws and rods (to make slugs) that are non-magnetic but will keep the look correct.  Will report back once I experiment.

[darkbluemurder]

Very cool, thanks for the heads up.

[RayBarbeeMusic]

Confirmed that the 316 stainless from McMaster-Carr is non-magnetic.  You can order rods in the correct diameter for slug poles (you have to cut your poles to length from the rod) and a number of socket screws from this material. 

[Strangeman86]

A twice-aired Dominion.  Obviously the standard Dimarzio fare of a gap between the pole pieces and the magnet, but also a gap (with some sort of pad, like the Imperium's magnet setup) between the magnet and the base plate.  It really cleans up the attack, opens up the treble in a super-pleasant way and increases the dynamic sensitivity quite a bit. I should also mention that I'm using an Imperium's 3/8ths in mag for this mod (I know, sacrificing one pickup for another) which makes up for most of the power lost in the air'ing process.

[RayBarbeeMusic]

Thought I'd mentioned this but maybe not.

Bluesbucker with the slugs knocked out.  Very easy to tap them out.  Sounds like a fat, overwound strat pickup.   Works best installed with screw poles toward the bridge (when in neck position).

[Octacoil]

I might try the 1/4 air mod. Thought of this idea today.

Cut the metal spaced in half then only air the three coils for bass strings. In theory, this should take off some bass from the bass strings.

What do you guys think?

[RayBarbeeMusic]

36th bridge with A8.  Very focused and ballsy tone, less high end air than stock.  Still paf but imagine if you could put a lot more wire on it.  Only drawback for me is it made the string feel a bit stiff for fast picked runs, but legato oriented people would probably like it a lot.

[darkbluemurder]

I post it here so that the results to the mod A5 in transition bridge can be found here as well: https://www.dimarzioforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=15746.0

[StevenMikel]

 Has anybody tried swapping hex/allen head pole pieces for screw pole pieces in any pups ? I'm going to put a PAF Pro in the neck of my Ibanez RGT42FM,I have a Norton in the bridge. I finally got the Norton dialed in to be bright enough by, lowering the pickup height and raising the pole pieces but, started wondering what would happen if I swapped the the neck side allen head pole pieces of the PAF Pro with the screw pole pieces of the Norton. I'm also thinking about swapping the  a5 mag of the Norton for a ceramic magnet, has anybody tried this ?