DiMarzio DP708 Crunch Lab 7

John Petrucci plays both 6 string guitars and 7 string guitars so when he has a pickup for the 6 strings that he likes he must have it in the 7 strings. This is good for the consumer because it means they can also have nice pickups in their seven strings. The Dimarzio Crunchlab is an updated version of the D-Sonic pickup. John Petrucci of Dream Theater got together with Dimarzio to change some things he disliked about the D-Sonic pickup which he had been using. The Crunchlab is a bridge position pickup that features a unique asymmetrical design. One end of the pickup has normal construction with pole piece magnets the other end has a bar or rail magnet like you would find an a Dimarzio X2N. The rated output is 11k with it voiced more progressively towards the low end. The pickup is a bit noisy because of its high output. It may pick up some radio signals or interference from nearby electronics. Because this pickup has an asymmetrical construction the tone you get will greatly depend on how you have the pickup orientated in your guitar. Petrucci designed the pickup to be orientated with the bar magnet towards the neck. This gives more low end response. Since Petrucci likes to use basswood guitars this pickup is geared for more low end response to balance out the brightness of that wood. In heavier wood guitars like mahogany this pickup may produce a sound that is too bassy or muddy. The pickup will produce tight low end and comfortable high end in guitars with a suitable wood. This pickup could make an all maple guitar sound dark. The pickup sounds just like its name, it is very crunchy. The lead tones the Crunchlab 7 produces are also good. Because the pickup has a lot of the high end dialed out you can get a very smooth and modern sounding lead tone out of it, or as smooth a lead tone as you can get with a bridge pickup. This pickup is geared towards high gain playing through modern metal amps such as Mesa Boogie Rectifiers or ENGL amps. I would recommend this pickup to anyone looking for a smooth modern metal or progressive sounding bridge pickup for their seven string.

The DiMarzio Crunch Lab 7 is a new signature pickup that John Petrucci helped create. It’s basically an evolution of the D-Sonic 7 that he started using in the bridge position. This pickup features adjustable pole pieces on one coil, a huge blade like the X2N7 on the other, four conductor wiring and a ceramic magnet.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the D-Sonic 7. It was picky on what wood it liked, and it was noisy. DiMarzio solved half of the issues I had with this pickup. First off, this pickup is hotter, yet it sounds more open. I really enjoyed that. It’s clear, more complex than the original D-Sonic 7 and works in just about any tuning. The original one got different sounds depending on how you ran it, and this one is similar. Despite that, it seems that John Petrucci likes running it with the bar towards the neck for every tuning, for whatever reason. I find that it sounds best that way, but some people prefer it with the bar towards the bridge. You just have to experiment and see which orientation you like it in. Split tones sound nicer than the last one; I haven’t tested this out in parallel.

Now, the biggest problem with this pickup is that it’s still noisy. It’s not quite as noisy as the last one, but it still seems to pickup some RF. I have a noise gate running most of the time, so it’s not a huge problem for me, but just keep that in mind.

If you’re looking for a new pickup to try, I recommend testing this pickup out. It’s hot, but it’s not trying to slam your amp. It’s more open than most high output pickup, and even some of the more boutique guitar builders are starting to offer this as a standard pickup.

After many changes pickups on my guitar, including Seymour sh4, and very good hfs Prs, and EMG 81, I must say that I finally found the microphone I was looking for !!
I play progressive metal, so I needed a snappy and powerful microphones for rhythmic, very accurate, ie restoring good attacking each notes in solos, and last but not least, a microphone with character re, which does not sound to me so cold and me. Well the lab crunch, current micro Mister Petrucci, responds all these criteria. In my mesa boogie rhythm that is close enough to the roar of a lion solo with a good rglage, the grain is not drooling fabulous very clean but very rich in harmonic richness mdium , and low. In clean I always use coupled with its Compre the LiquiFire, but not so bad gre in this area.

That is all! in résumé I'm really happy with this mic I also used currently in the studio. I would add that I have also the compar on my amp with ernie ball musicman The First Version Petrucci team in d-sonic, well I think the lab crunch is over, I CONSIDERED as an improvement of the d-sonic, richer bass, and wicked.