Posts Tagged ‘DiMarzio’
Thursday, May 12th, 2011
Ibanez RG550 20th Anniversary Reissue with DiMarzio PAF Pro installed
One of my first forays into modifying pickups was swapping the stock Alnico 5 magnet with a ceramic magnet in a DiMarzio PAF Pro. In the end the problem I had with this modification was that I found I had too much treble, and the pickup was a bit too twangy for my liking. I reverted the PAF Pro back to stock, and then put it into the neck position of my RG550, and dropped a DiMarzio Tone Zone into the bridge position.
After learning a bit more about magnets, and their uses in pickups I decided that I would try putting the PAF Pro back in the bridge position, and load it up with an Alnico 8 magnet.
The Alnico 8 magnet is capable of providing the same warm tone that an Alnico 5 provides, but boosts the output much like a ceramic magnet. It’s kind of the best of both worlds when it comes down to it. (more…)
Tags: Alnico 5, Alnico 8, crunch, DiMarzio, DIY, humbucker, magnet, mod, modification, modify, more, output, PAF Pro, pickup
Posted in DIY, Pickups | 3 Comments »
Friday, March 4th, 2011
Following on from my “Taming the Tone Zone – continued” post, I have been conducting some more “invasive” modifications to the popular DiMarzio pickup. I decided to open up the Tone Zone and try some magnet modifications.
Some people are probably questioning my reasons for doing so many modifications with pickups. “Why don’t I just buy something that suits you better” I’m sure is something many would say. The reason is that I’m quite often on a strict budget, being a family man with mortgage, kids and all. Tinkering away with things to suit me better saves me the hassle of buying and selling, and is usually quite minimal in cost. Plus it’s also fun to experiment with things, and make something kind of unique. (more…)
Tags: Alnico 5, Ceramic, DiMarzio, DIY, EVH, F2, guitar, half-air, humbucker, IBZ/USA, mod, modify, pickup, Tone Zone
Posted in DIY, Pickups | 5 Comments »
Sunday, February 6th, 2011
More experimenting with the DiMarzio Tone Zone
In my previous post about taming the DiMarzio Tone Zone I talked about using a capacitor to reduce the low-end muddiness that is sometimes associated with the Tone Zone. I used a 0.047uF capacitor to filter out some of the low end, and it did so fairly well. The Ibanez 20th Anniversary RG550 RFR that I installed the capacitor in is a muddy sounding guitar though, and the 0.047uF capacitor wasn’t quite cutting the low end enough for me when I was playing faster picked low E based riffs. The Tone Zone sounded fantastic for lead work, and riffs not predominately using the low E string, but things just got too flabby when chugging away on the low E.
I decided to try a 0.01uF capacitor to see if I could chop the bass out a little more and sharpen up the tone to my liking. I also decided to record a audio sample of the Tone Zone, first with no capacitor on the “hot” wire, then with a 0.047uF capacitor, and finally with a 0.01uf capacitor. The link below is the clip I recorded, playing some riffs from one of my band’s songs. (more…)
Tags: bass, capacitor, DiMarzio, DIY, filter, less, low-end, modify, pickup, Seymour Duncan, solder, Tone Zone, wiring
Posted in DIY, Pickups | 4 Comments »
Friday, January 28th, 2011
Ibanez please make something like the RG465 a regular production model!
Since my wife and new-born son were still in hospital, and having a nap I thought I would go into my local music store and try the Ibanez RG465 and a Blackstar HT-1 combo. I thought I might give them both a mini review.
The RG465 is an Indonesian made, special limited run guitar. They come in red and blue, and feature a basswood body, reverse headstock, maple fretboard with colour-matched dots, and a seriously cool humbucker-single coil pickup combo. The bridge is an Edge III, which is probably the only downside to the guitar.
Picking it up, the RG465 had a nice moderate weight just like you would expect from an Ibanez RG. The neck is a Wizard II, and construction on this particular guitar was top-notch. Acoustically the guitar sounded quite nice and full, and wasn’t too muddy, like some guitars with basswood bodies can be. (more…)
Tags: Air Norton S, DiMarzio, Edge III, Evolution, Ibanez, maple, review, RG465. guitar
Posted in Guitars, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
The new DiMarzio Paul Gilbert Injector pickups in his new Ibanez Fireman model.
Paul Gilbert has been an endorser of DiMarzio pickups for many years now. He has been most known for using the Tone Zone and PAF Pro humbuckers, so it is a surprise to see that his first signature DiMarzio pickups are actually single coils known as Injectors.
There are two models of the Injector, a bridge, and neck model. Both are hum cancelling single coil pickups, and they “buck” the hum by having two coils stacked on top of each other. The Injectors are also the hottest pickups of their type.
Here are the details from DiMarzio’s press release: (more…)
Tags: bridge, DiMarzio, Fireman, hum-cancelling, Ibanez, Injector, neck, Paul Gilbert, pickup, single coil, stack
Posted in General | No Comments »
