« Tone Zone with more harmonics »

Dimarzio is one of the most popular after market pickup makers on the scene. Their pickups are more usually found in shred style guitars or super strats. They are used mostly by modern guitar players looking for a modern sound. Steve Vai and Satriani have been using Dimarzios for years and have helped design many models. These guys epitomize the term modern guitar player. The Norton is a mix between the FRED and the Tone Zone. The FRED is the early Satriani pickup design. I am not a huge fan of it. I found that it had a very strange voicing to it but the harmonics where good. This Norton pickup takes the good parts of the FRED and adds them to a Tone Zone. So you get a mix between one weird unusable pickup and one weird useable pickup. It came out in the mid 90s and has all the crazy harmonics of the FRED with the big sound of the Tone Zone. It has 4 conductor wiring with an alnico 5 magnet. The output is about 13k so it is moderately hot. Like just about every Dimarzio humbucker they say its its a PAF with a more modern sound or more tonal range blah blah. The EQ is pretty level with some dialed back treble and slightly boosted mids. The Norton really delivers on its promise it really is like a Tone Zone with all the harmonics of a FRED. The Tone Zone is known for its big sound with its tight low and and crazy mids and this pickup has all of that. With the 13k output this is considered medium output nowadays. Not having super high output gives this pickup more dynamic range than a pickup with insane output. It is very hard to make a super high output pickup that still retains all the dyanmic range you could want. If you are looking for a Tone Zone with more harmonics or a FRED with a better voice this pickup is for you.