« It has that real old PAF sound »

DiMarzio has been recently delivering some super high quality pickups at great prices. Ever since the boutique pickup market has started to gain some traction, DiMarzio decided to step it up and show the world that they can deliver pickups just as good and at better prices, all made here in the United States. The Anniversary PAF is a great example of one of their best pickups for that lower to mid gain stuff. If you’ve ever played an older PAF, you’ll know what it sounds like. It’s a lower output pickup that really allows the guitar’s natural frequencies to soar through the amp. It’s not like the standard higher output pickups that so many people seem to add in their guitars. This pickup seems to really mate best with Gibsons, in my experience. I’ve found that it can be a bit bright if you install it in a strat and don’t have a tone knob. The pickup just oozes mojo, though. You can really hear that vowel-ish kind of character that is very prominent in this pickup. It’s also extremely dynamic, so if you pick lightly, you’ll be able to get a great clean tone; if you pick hard, you’ll get an amazing hard rock tone that’ll just completely coat the room in amazing tone. It’s pretty crazy how responsive this pickup is when you start fiddling around with the volume knob. Just be sure that your guitar isn’t too bright sounding already. The pickup has some treble in it, and it might not be too pleasing through the wrong amp. I have these installed in my Gibson R7, and they sound absolutely glorious. I highly recommend them for anyone who wants that vintage kind of tone, especially if you’re a fan of Eric Johnson, Gary Moore and so on.