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Nails the PAF tone in my historic gibson
Published on 12/03/14 at 09:07So anyway, I called Dimarzio, and ordered a set with "vintage aged" nickel silver covers, and put them in my guitar. I actually had some small difficulty as the covers were square cornered, but I called dimarzio and got some help.
The result was pretty dang amazing, all I can say folks is you owe it to yourself to try them for yourself. They sounded more...…
So anyway, I called Dimarzio, and ordered a set with "vintage aged" nickel silver covers, and put them in my guitar. I actually had some small difficulty as the covers were square cornered, but I called dimarzio and got some help.
The result was pretty dang amazing, all I can say folks is you owe it to yourself to try them for yourself. They sounded more legit in this guitar than the original burstbuckers, wolftones, marshallheads, and throbaks. I didn't compare them to my set of True 60's ($450 pickups wound by Fralin for RS Guitarworks), but I did not want to yank those out of my other lester. However, I will say this guitar does sound better.
So here's some finer analysis:
The burstbuckers have that scrambled eggs sound (don't know what else to call it, that mid scramble sound)... these don't.
Wolfs and Marshalls... TOO HAIRY. Great sounding pickups, but real PAFs don't have hair, at least not the good ones.
Throbaks - they are exceptional, but they lack some of the woody-warmth on the neck pickup of the real ones I have played. The bridge was as good or better, but didn't pair well balance wise with the dimarzio neck, the output was louder. I do find an odd artifact in the lower mids on the throbaks, it sounds good, but I hear it every time I do low bends getting a vowel sound on my rig. Nothing bad though.. to be honest I like it, they deserve the reputation of more PAF than PAF.
The Dimarzios. Oh yes, oh yes. How do they make these so cheap? Turned down they clean up wonderfully, without losing that balanced tone or getting muddy, but cranked up through a cranked plexi, they sing, with the trade mark midrange tone, wonderful harmonic overtones. Not as open sounding as the wolfs or marshalls, but no hair... - the originals have a slight compression when pushed, and these nail it. The neck pickup deserves praise above and beyond the set itself - probably the best PAF neck pickup made since 1960, it just spills over in woodiness, the bass does not become muddy or overwhelming, just a perfect balance.
The value for price is ridiculous - making these pickups a no-brainer. When I first heard that dimarzio was going to compete with boutique pickup makers I laughed. I guess the value of the many years of experience of this company cannot be understated. What is impressive is they did not follow the sheeple, and replicate all the additional inflated-aspects of the PAF that have become the bread and butter of most boutique winders, they did a tone reset right back to '59, with the benefit of having real unmodified 59s in an exceptional example burst, to compare to.
Bottom line: If you want the tone, here it is.

It has that real old PAF sound
Published on 10/21/12 at 16:41
Vintage style Dimarzio
Published on 12/09/11 at 09:03
The closest you are going to get in this price range
Published on 08/04/11 at 12:51When Dimarzio came out with these I was very very skeptical. I've used dimarzio's with success before, but that was in high gain applications. I've never looked at them as being a good provider of low gain pickups, or...…
When Dimarzio came out with these I was very very skeptical. I've used dimarzio's with success before, but that was in high gain applications. I've never looked at them as being a good provider of low gain pickups, or even very high quality pickups. Just an okay manufacturer. However, my friend told me I needed to try these. He said they were the real deal, so I figured it couldn't hurt to put them in my Les Paul standard.
I found out later that Larry Dimarzio did some pretty heavy research to make these. He actually simulated the aging of the magnets. On top of that he made sure the materials were all correct and the winding was done right. It makes sense because well...they sound spot on. I've played a lot of high end PAF clones and these are right up there. They just have that tone. Creamy, sweet, mid gain PAF tone. They are well balanced and clean up great. The cleans in the neck are ace. The bridge roars like a PAF should.
You really need to try these in a Les Paul to get the full effect. They were made for that function and they thrive in one. The value is tremendous. They have the boutique tone for a third of the price.
Tech. sheet
- Manufacturer: DiMarzio
- Model: DP103 PAF 36th Anniversary
- Series: Vintage Output
- Category: Humbucker guitar pickups
- Added in our database on: 07/08/2012
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