« Classic Fender tones and look with low noise »

The Dimarzio Virtual Vintage series promises various classic vintage Fender tones with low noise due to the stacked coil design. These are humbucking pickups by design rather than single coild, since there are two coils and each coil is on top of one another rather than side by side. Since the coils are on top of one another it still looks like a single coil and fits in a single coil space. Early Dimarzio stacked coil pickups like the HS-3 did not sound too good. They were quiet bu the tone wasnt there. The HS-3's had muted highs and the lacked attack in the mids and low end. Overall the HS-3 did not have the clarity a single coil should. The Virtual Vintage series much more accurately gets the single coil sound out of a stacked coil pickup. They are a lot better compared to the old HS-3.  Some of the top-end sparkle is still lacking and there is added low-end typical for a humbucker, but for some people that may have an overly bright Fender amp and want to reduce the noise or possibility of hum/interference, DiMarzio’s Virtual Vintage series does a good job. For the absolute vintage tone connosieur dead-set on getting accurate tones, dealing with the possibility of a little hum and going for a single-coil set would likely be a better bet however. One area where this series seemed to be of help to me was when I ran loads of distortion or fuzz or a good deal of processing. Any hum that would have been transferred by another pickup would have been amplified greatly through a stompbox. In the case of the Virtual Vintage series, that was one issue I was able to avoid. So finally you can get a stacked humbucking single coil that actually sounds like a single coil should. If you are looking for a quiet but vintage sounding pickup that still looks vintage the Dimarzio Virtual Vintage could be right for you.