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Hatsubai « Brutally hot »
Published on 03/25/11 at 14:20The DiMarzio X2N is a balls to the wall, aggressive pickup that really slams your front end. If you’re looking for a versatile pickup, I would not recommend this. However, if you’re a metal player, it would be worth considering this. It contains two rails instead of pole pieces and four conductor wiring.
The X2N was made in the late 70s in an attempt to really take the pickup world by storm. It was meant to be the most powerful pickup on the market, and it’s still one of the hottest pickups out there. The tone itself is fairly even with a slight top end bite going on. Chuck Schuldiner is a very popular use of this pickup, and if you’ve ever heard any of Death’s albums, you’ve heard this pickup in action. Michael Romeo recently started using this pickup in his Caparison guitars as well.
This is strictly a bridge pickup. I’ve seen some people put it in the neck, but it’s just so powerful that it’s hard to control without lowering it like crazy. The pickup works good in most woods, but I find that it sounds best in mahogany more than anything else. In basswood, it’s alright, but basswood guitars can get thin sounding if they don’t have the correct pickups in them. Putting it in alder gives the guitar a nice bite.
One thing people don’t seem to mention is that this thing sounds awesome split. When you add a push/pull or mini toggle and split it, it’s similar to a powerful, clean single coil kinda tone. Parallel gives a real interesting tone as well, so it’s actually pretty versatile if you have the means to split it. I have a feeling most will simply run it in series, though. After all, that’s’ where you get the most power and aggression.
The X2N was made in the late 70s in an attempt to really take the pickup world by storm. It was meant to be the most powerful pickup on the market, and it’s still one of the hottest pickups out there. The tone itself is fairly even with a slight top end bite going on. Chuck Schuldiner is a very popular use of this pickup, and if you’ve ever heard any of Death’s albums, you’ve heard this pickup in action. Michael Romeo recently started using this pickup in his Caparison guitars as well.
This is strictly a bridge pickup. I’ve seen some people put it in the neck, but it’s just so powerful that it’s hard to control without lowering it like crazy. The pickup works good in most woods, but I find that it sounds best in mahogany more than anything else. In basswood, it’s alright, but basswood guitars can get thin sounding if they don’t have the correct pickups in them. Putting it in alder gives the guitar a nice bite.
One thing people don’t seem to mention is that this thing sounds awesome split. When you add a push/pull or mini toggle and split it, it’s similar to a powerful, clean single coil kinda tone. Parallel gives a real interesting tone as well, so it’s actually pretty versatile if you have the means to split it. I have a feeling most will simply run it in series, though. After all, that’s’ where you get the most power and aggression.