DiMarzio DP152 Super 3

Dimarzio was thinking very specifically when they designed this pickup. It seems like from the description that it fits a certain niche of players, and in practice I can assess that this is quite true. Basically they designed this for metal and hard rock players who scoop the mids out of their amps. At face value this seems like a fairly cheap but understandable approach. The reality is that many metal players do indeed scoop their mids...but if they scoop them why would they want to put them back with this pickup? Truth be told I don't know.

My situation is this. I do play metal and hard rock. But I don't scoop my mids. In fact I love my mids. I can't get enough of them. I bought this pickup with the intention of adding some mids to my sound without turning any knobs. I used this pickup on an RG550 along with a blue velvet in the middle position and a Breed in the neck position. What can I say? I like Dimarzio a lot.

The pickup is indeed high output, although not blistering. I would say it's close to an Anderson H3. Maybe a little less than an EMG 81. It's high enough to get some real overdrive out of an amp but it's not ridiculously hot like some pickups that are near unusable. I run it into a Bogner Uberschall most of the time so I have no issues getting gain.

As advertised, it has a ton of mids, but never really gets honky which is what I was afraid of. I can't really knock it at all. I guess it's only useful to metal players though. It can do hard rock but is too aggressive for anything more conservative than that. It's no PAF. But nobody is gonna expect it to be.

Lets take the Super Distortion our most popular pickup and double the output. After that lets jack up the mids and the bass. This is exactly that. This pickup was ahead of its time and its less than 20 years old. The output is really off the charts. Its hotter than the old X2N and the X2N had huge bar magnets. The Super 3 puts out a rediculous 25k of output in a traditional design. You will have to use a noise gate with this much output because this guitar will pick up everything. DiMarzio intended this pickup to be the new workhorse for metal music. It is voiced with a dark top end but a tight low end. The boosted mids are for people who ran the mids scooped on their amps. I dont know anyone who does this anymore but in the 90s when this came out that was the trendy way of getting a heavy sound on your amp. The mids are so cranked on this pickup you may find yourself using those 90s amp settings again. This is the pickup you want if you just want to push your amp to within an inch of its life. You will not get much single note clarity. Because the Super 3 is so dark it works well in brighter guitars. You have to think what guitars were popular for metal at the time. Guitars like Ibanez's and Jacksons and other shred guitars made from brighter woods. Jacksons with their neck through construction are ideal candidates since neck through construction tends to provide the brightest sound acoustically. Ibanez's work well too because of the wood they use in most of their guitars. So if you want a pickup that has insane gain while still being passive, and is so dark it only drinks blood this is the pickup for you.

DiMarzio released the Super 3 around the same time as the Super 2. People were looking for a variation of the Super Distortion that was fatter and had more output. The pickup features adjustable allen head bolts on both coils and comes standard with four conductor wiring, just like nearly all DiMarzio pickups.

The Super 3 is quite a handful of a pickup. If you’re in need of something that’s extremely fat sounding with outrageous output, this is your pickup. Despite it having tons of bass and output, the pickup isn’t overly muddy like certain other pickups out there. Since the treble is chopped, you’ll probably be turning up the treble and presence on your amplifier. This will actually result in a slightly different distortion character and feel, which could be for the better or worse. The midrange in this pickup is cranked quite a bit, so it’s going to compress the amp fairly hard. Note clarity is only average with this pickup given its specs. If you’re looking for note clarity, there are better pickups out there for you to try out. Split tones on this are pretty cool, though. It reminds me of a fat single coil.

I recommend this for very bright guitars that lack low end compared to other guitars out there. Neck-thru guitars are a good candidate for this pickup since most of the construction is maple. Another good candidate would be an all maple body. However, keep in mind that these are just general sound specs. Every piece of wood out there sounds different. Some all maple guitars sound dark, believe it or not. You need to listen to what your guitar needs and decide that way. If you’re looking for a lower output pickup ,this obviously won’t be the pickup you’re looking for. It’s also a pickup that’s a bit hard to tame given the output.