DiMarzio DP156 Humbucker From Hell

DiMarzio went ahead and delivered a very unique pickup back in the day. They had this strange name called the Humbucker From Hell. It was something that nobody had ever tried before. They made a pickup that had tons of treble and almost had this single coil kind of quality to it. However, since it was a humbucker, it didn’t have that issue of hum and buzz. A lot of shredders started using this because of how clear it is. However, they used it in the neck position. This is not a bridge pickup, and I can’t stress that enough. It’ll just be too bright and thin in the bridge. It’s solely meant to be a neck pickup. In the neck, it’s actually a quite low output pickup. You wouldn’t expect that from the name they gave this. The clarity of this pickup is pretty outrageous. If you thought the PAF Pro was bright, you should hear this thing. Personally, I prefer smoother and fatter lead tones. I also prefer a bit more output, so I never truly got along with this pickup compared to the other pickups that DiMarzio has to offer. To me, it was just too bright and didn’t offer what I was looking for. Some guys really like this though, and I find that it sounds best in basswood bodies more than anything else. It seems to really suit the natural warmth of basswood, combined with the heavy midrange basswood tends to have. In other body woods, it doesn’t seem to really get along too well. These days, this pickup has kinda been moved to the back burner because of how it doesn’t really fit today’s amps. The amps back then were different than today, and people were battling a huge loss of treble due to the huge racks they used to run. That’s why this pickup was used so much. Since the rack days are kinda gone, more people look towards fatter pickups and get treble from the amp.

This pickup is from the DiMarzio heyday in the 80s. In the 80s just about everyone was using Dimarzio pickups in their guitars. In the 80s everyone wanted a super clear tone so they could cut through the mix while using 500 rack effects in their rack. Everything was super bright back then to do this. The Humbucker from Hell came from this. It was originally designed as a bright neck pickup that wouldnt get muddy. To do this they had to make the pickup super bright and clear. Pickups in the neck position traditionally have a more muddy sound because they pick up more bass frequencies. A normal neck pickup would be super muddy if played through the kind of rigs they were using back then. They had effects just to have them and bigger rig = better for everyone back then even if they didnt sound good. The humbucker from Hell came out and and was super clear for the neck position. Then people started putting it in the bridge position. For it to have that clarity in the neck it had to be over the top bright. Now in the bridge position the brightness was too much. Not counteracting the bass frequencies from the neck position in the bridge position you got ice pick sharpness and it was hard to dial in a good tone for it. This is a very 80s pickup at heart. It does not have super high output but the EQ on this pickup is rediculously slanted towards the high end. It is way more useable for the neck position than the bridge position but if you are crazy enough you can put it in the bridge position. If you are putting this pickup in an already bright guitar you are just trying to hurt people ears. If you are in an 80s tribute band or something and want to complete your 80s sound a pickup like this will brighten you right up.

This is a decent neck pickup for any guitar with nearly any wood combination. It's a versatile pickup for clean to medium gain musical applications from jazz to rock. Of course, majority of the time I'm on the bridge pickup, but for the thick leads or nice clean passages I used the neck pickup.

Cleans:
Very glassy, and bright. Nearly single-coil like. I don't know WHY it's labelled humbucker from hell when it's not a hi-output pickup at all and the cleans can get almost shimmery if you want it to. Though it is still in the neck position it’s not something I would use for rhyhms unless I want a purposely big-fan clean rhythm.

Dirty: I've used this pickup for certain lead passages and solos and found the tone to be thick like a neck pickup but is dynamic. Your pick attack is noticed, it's a bit of a compressed distortion that i've found most dimarzios have but because of that it's got a smooth tone. With hi-gain it's also not bad but I've heard and played other pickups that track better at shred-speeds.

I unfortunately didn’t decide to coil tap the pickup. Though I think each pickup sounds really different once the coil tap is used. I haven’t tried this in the bridge pickup either.

Overall it's a decent neck pickup and can work well with a lot of different guitars. Though it is a bright pickup, it might be suited for a warmer guitar if you need to brighten your tone. Though I've generally found that neck pickups are almost always too dark to begin with. The HFH on dirt is also ok for low-medium gain but high gain not so much as it might be a bit too ‘glassy’ sounding overall and isn’t too liquidy smooth that some players like in a neck pickup.