SeriesDiMarzio 7-String

Dimarzio is one of the most popular after market pickup makers around. They are known for their modern sounding pickups built for modern guitar players. Players like Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and John Petrucci have been using their pickups for years and these are your definition of modern guitar players. The D-Activator line of pickups is their attempt to make a passive pickup that sounds like an active pickup. This is aimed more towards the metal audience. This is the 7 string model so it has an even more specialized audience. There are a lot less 7 string pickups out on the market and the best ones being active limits the options you have if you do not want to get an active pickup. Also all the 7 string active pickups come in sizes that do not let you put them in guitars that did not come with them originally. This pickup is made for the neck position and thats the main problem with it. It seems like they have modeled this passive pickup after the EMG 81 7 string version. This is a good pickup but the problem is that the pickup is meant for the bridge position. The 81 and the D-Activator have super bright high end gain sounds. This means they are super clear when you are riffing away in the bridge position. The seccond you put one in the neck position you get a pretty much unusable sound. The sound is not smooth at all. Some people with really muddy guitars make like this but I do not. When I switch to the neck position I want a smooth sound for lead playing. If you try and play leads with this pickup in the neck position you will have a harsh super bright sound. If you have a super muddy 7 strin guitar or are planning on tuning down very very low this is the pickup for you. If you are not doing these things I would recommend something else.

With the popularity of seven strings on the rise, guitar players want their favorite pickups for their seven strings. The X2N7 is one of these new seven string pickups which is essentially a classic design. In the late 70s guitar players were looking to push their amps harder than ever before, they wanted as much gain as they could get and DiMarzio rushed to satisfy this need. To help end the madness they created the X2N pickup. The X2N was designed to push the old-school Marshalls to melting point. It was the kick in the face guitar players were looking for back then and it still is now. The X2N is voiced relatively flat with a little extra high-end for clarity so be careful. If you put one in a bright guitar it will sound extra bright. I would recommend it for Mahogany guitars mostly. The X2N is designed to be used in the bridge of a guitar. It would overpower the neck position. Some people have found the split tones useable but I have never tried. The X2N was the undisputed king of output for many years and still runs with the best of them. This pickup is suited for the heaviest of music where clarity with high gain is demanded. This thing is so hot it may push your clean channel. You may have to roll back on the volume to get your clean tones clean. Another problem is that the dual bar magnets are so powerful they may cause excessive drag on the strings if your pickup is set too high this may slightly lower your sustain. Chuck Shuldiner of the band Death used the 6 string version of this pickup through his whole career. If you listen to any Death album you will hear the X2N's trademark bite. If you are looking for a pickup suited for heavy music you should consider the X2N. Its nearly half the cost of an Active pickup with the same output. With so many people using active pickups if you want to sound distinct the X2N may be the way to go.

The DiMarzio Blaze Middle is the only single coil that DiMarzio offers for the seven string world. It was made to go along with the Blaze Neck and Blaze Bridge in the Ibanez Universe. Clever names, I know. It’s a true single coil that features adjustable pole pieces, two conductor wiring and a ceramic magnet stuffed inside of it. First of all, this pickup is average sounding. It’s not that great, but it’s also not bad. It can work for most situations, but the fact that there are so few seven string single coils on the market means your choices are limited to pretty much this or some custom wound pickup. Duncan has a much nicer selection, actually. They’ll make a seven string version of any of their pickups. This pickup has some decent bite to it like any other single coil, even bass and even mids. It’s fairly clean sounding without getting muddy, and it works for most situations out there. One of my gripes with this pickup is that it has a ceramic magnet, just like all of DiMarzio’s seven string pickups. These ceramic magnets can work great for that super tight sound, but they can hinder the way the pickup blooms. I find singles coils are especially susceptive to this issue. An Alnico 5 magnet in this would be pretty nice, but it still makes for an overall average pickup. If you’re looking for a single coil pickup for your guitar, you’re not going to find many options. This is a decent choice to run, but I find it’s pretty much strictly a middle string pickup. I find that it doesn’t have enough power to work in the bridge, and the neck tones with this thing are a bit dismal. The good thing is that I don’t use the middle position all that much anyway, so it never really bothered me.

This is the 7 string version of the Air Norton pickup. The Air Norton has been gaining popularity recently mostly because of John Petrucci. John Petrucci Is the ugitar player for the progressive band Dream Theater and he is pretty much a hero for prog guitar players around the world. He does not use the pickup anymore but when Dream Theater was at their most popular this is what he was using. You can say this is an early version of the Liquifier, which is what Petrucci uses now. This is the 7 string version which is great because the pickup selector for 7 string guitars is a lot less than the selection for 6 strings. Lots of modern and contemporary players are switching to 7 strings and they need their pickups that they are use to. This pickup features 4 conductor wiring with a 13k output. The EQ on this pickup is slanted towards the low end to give you a smooth lead tone. This is a great pickup for progressive and contemporary lead playing. This pickup is super smooth without getting muddy. This pickup was pretty much designed to go in Petruccis guitar. The pickup sounds best in basswood guitars which is what he uses. The pickup has a very neutral tone so it will take the tone of whatever wood you are using. The lead tones on this pickups are smooth and fat. It has a lot of low end but it does not become muddy. The notes come out nice and clear even with the fat tone. It has a very distinctive tone when playing leads as well that has a modern sound but a bit of vintage bite to it as well. If you have heard any Dream Theater song with a solo you have heard this pickup. If you are looking for a great neck position pickup for your 7 string this is a good choice.

Dimarzio is a very modern pickup maker. They have been making pickups for many years and are used by many guitar players. The Tone Zone is one of their classic models that has been used throughout the years. It is based on a PAF but with a bit more midrange and more harmonics. It had a ton of low and but was not the tightest pickup out there. Now they are making a 7 string version of that pickup and the limitations of the original design are really showing. It has 4 conductor wiring and a very hot output of nearly 18k. The EQ on this pickup is what ruins it. The EQ on the Tone Zone is slanted hard towards the low end. This is fine on most 6 string guitars but when you are playing with a 7 string you already have a ton more low end. You dont need a pickup that has a bunch of low end in itself. The guitar provides the low end. If anything with a 7 string you want a guitar with a lot of top end and mids to keep clarity with the extra low end the guitar is providing. Dimarzio kept the 6 string voicing for this 7 string pickup and it is just way too muddy. Dimarzio talks and talks about the pickup having less magnet pull but they dont mention the all the useless low end the pickup still has. With this much low end on a 7 string whenever you touch the low B its just going to cover up anything else you are playing. If you have a 7 string and are looking for a good pickup with plenty of low end I would recommend the EMG 707. That pickup has plenty of low and and being active it can handle the 7 string frequencies.

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.

As more and more guitar makers make seven string guitars, they need the seven string versions of the pickups they love on their 6 string. Dimarzio has been providing their most popular pickups in 7 string versions. The need for a smooth seven string neck pickup led Dimarzio to convert one of their newest pickups to seven string. The Liquifire is the ideal neck pickup to go with a very hot bridge pickup. It takes care of the problems many 24 fret guitars experience on their neck pickups. Because of the 24 frets the neck pickup is placed farther back then it would be on traditional guitars like a Les Paul or Fender Stratocaster. This means the neck pickup picks up more high end frequencies than it would in the more traditional guitars. This means your neck pickup sound may not be as smooth as it should be. The Liquifire fixes this difficulty. John Petrucci of Dream Theater helped to develop this pickup with his new seven string Ernie Ball MusicMan guitars. When looking at a pickup designed by an artist you should look at what kind of guitar the artist would put it in and what kind of wood that guitar is made out of. In this case the pickup was designed for a seven string guitar with an alder body. Because of this pickups voicing it should work well in most woods some heavy woods may make the sound a little muddy though. This pickup is like a modified Dimarzio Air Norton or PAF pro. The Air Norton was also designed with Petrucci and was intended to be a fat neck pickup with dialed back high end, the Liquifire is an evolution of this concept. It can be used in the bridge but it is ideally suited for the neck position and for lead playing. The Liquifire produces a full and round sound and there is no unwanted high end on the neck pickup. This reduced high end may make clean passages a little undefined. So if you are looking for a modern sounding neck pickup to go on your modern guitar, and plan on playing modern heavy music this could be your pickup of choice.

The DiMarzio Drop Sonic 7 is a new take on the humbucker that many people haven’t pursued before. It features one coil that’s similar to the X2N7 and one coil that’s kinda similar to the Tone Zone 7. The pickup is unique in that it sounds different depending on its orientation. The pickup also features four conductor wiring and a ceramic magnet. The Drop Sonic 7 is one of those pickups that seems like an experiment more than anything. Earlier, I referred to it being similar to an X2N7 and a Tone Zone 7 put together, and it’s really similar to that. It’s a very high output pickup, but it’s very noisy. I have no clue why DiMarzio released such a noisy pickup. The pickup itself is fairly even in tone except for this upper treble bite. That treble bite is ultimate what lead me to dislike this pickup. Most people who try this are going to try it in basswood. After all, that’s what John Petrucci first used it in. However, I can firmly say that this pickup doesn’t sound that great in basswood. The treble is amplified in a way that it becomes almost grating. The evenness of the pickup also leads it to have no flavor at all. Keep in mind, this is all with the bar facing towards the bridge. With the bar towards the neck, it sounds pretty fat and is fairly clear. However, you then have this issue of it sounding really bad when it’s split. To me, this pickup is more suited towards mahogany. In fact, it’s a great match with a mahogany body and a rosewood fretboard. These help warm it up enough to give it character while having everything sound fairly clean. If you’re going to try out this pickup, be sure to watch your noise levels. It’s very sensitive to lights and other electric signals that pickups might pick up.

The DiMarzio Blaze Custom is a DiMarzio Blaze but with more midrange. This also makes it a bit hotter than the original Blaze as well. It features adjustable pole pieces on both coils, four conductor wiring and a ceramic magnet. The original Blaze Bride was a pretty good pickup, but the newer Blaze Custom is a bit better, in my opinion. The boosted midrange helps really kick this pickup into overdrive without sounding too muddy. It doesn’t clean up as nicely as the original Blaze Bridge did, but it wasn’t really meant to. This pickup isn’t too powerful to where it’ll make everything like a square wave, but it also isn’t so weak that you’ll be wanting more power all the time. The bass on this is nice and fairly tight. It has enough to sound big but without sounding overly bass heavy. The treble on this is slightly pushed back, but the midrange helps make up for that. The boosted midrange makes this pickup be like a very powerful PAF style pickup. While this was designed around basswood, it works in pretty much most any wood. Keep in mind that mahogany is a very midrange heavy wood, so there might be a bit of an onslaught of midrange, but it shouldn’t be too bad. Again, it all depends on how that particular piece of wood sounds. Split coil and parallel sounds on this aren’t too bad. If you’re looking for a nice, hot bridge pickup for your seven string guitar, this is a cool option to check out. I ran this for a long time before I finally settled on the Evolution 7. I decided that I wanted a tighter, more focused sounding pickup, hence the change. This thing sounds a bit bigger than the Evolution 7, so it all depends on what you are going for.

The DiMarzio Blaze Neck is one of the first seven string models that DiMarzio ever produced. Equipped in the Ibanez Universe, it featured a unique sound similar to an overwound PAF. It features adjustable pole pieces on both coils, four conductor wiring and a ceramic magnet. The DiMarzio Blaze Neck was made for the Ibanez Universe way back when, and it’s still a great pickup today. It’s a medium output pickup that has good note definition and is open enough to given complexity to its sound but compressed enough to where it makes some of those legato lines easier. The lows on this pickup are pretty nice. They bloom enough to where it sounds big but aren’t overpowering to where the low B is farting out. The mids are scooped a bit to add clarity, and the high end is a touch crisp to add some presence without being overly harsh. The pickup works great as an all around pickup in the neck. Although the choices of neck pickups in the seven string DiMarzio world are a bit slim, this pickup delivers enough to where you’d be pleased with it in just about any genre. One cool feature about this pickup is that it can work great in the bridge position. When you put it in the bridge, you get this medium output PAF that sounds really nice and clear under gain. Split coil and parallel tones are also very nice. If you’re looking for a seven string neck pickup, this is a very good choice to start out with. It’s basically the standard as far as neck pickups go. It makes with any wood you can throw at it, sounds great with cleans, midgain and high gain, and should be able to do just about any genre you play.