« Turn your strat into a metal machine!! »

For the longest time I've had a fundamental divide. My favorite bridge humbucker has been the Dimarzio Super 3 for a long time. I've always loved Strats. Not Fat Strats, mind you (with an actual humbucker in the bridge), but classic Strats. Leave it to Dimarzio to provide a pickup that fits in the space of a single-coil, but has the output to bring the Stratocaster into the hard rock and metal arenas. Dimarzio claims the Fast Track 2 bears a strong resemblance to the Super 3, and once I installed one in the bridge of a newer Strat I got, I became a believer. Now my Strat can do everything from cleans and blues, to classic rock tones, to full-on shred and metal. With 321 mV of output, 18.07 Kohm DC Resistance, and a B/M/T curve of 7.5/8.0/5.0 it would be easy to think this pickup would be too muddy, but that's not the case. The Fast Track 2 has a great punch, nice mid-range grind, and plenty of top-end to be balanced but not veer into ice-pick territory. It does its humbucker big-brother proud. I installed the Fast Track 2 in an ESP LTD M203 with a Fast Track 1 in the Middle and a Chopper in the neck (reviews to come). The Fast Track 2 does full-force assault in the bridge position but changes character nicely when switched to position 4. This is something I figured I would have to compromise with a pickup with so much output and bass/mid push but I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only does it clean up fairly well on its own, but that it does even better when coil-split with the middle pickup. If you have the dilemma that I did, you like playing Strats AND you like playing metal, the Dimarzio Fast Track 2 pickup just may be the solution to your internal struggle. Now you don’t have to be Yngwie or use massive overdrive/distortion pedals to shred up a strat. Probably 80% of full-sized humbuckers don’t have the output that the Fast Track 2 has. It’s for real, make no mistake.