DiMarzio DP166 The Breed Bridge

Vai has a lot of pickups these days. However, in the past, it was really only the Evolution and the Breed pickups. Whereas the Evolution was a super tight and bright sounding pickup, the Breeds were very fat sounding. In fact, the Breed was actually an overwound PAF Pro with double adjusting screw heads that allow you to fine tune the guitar’s tone more than most pickups at the time. The double adjusting screw heads actually give this pickup its fatness and is the secret behind the tone. The pickup has a lot of bass and midrange - a signature trait of DiMarzio pickups at the time. It also has some more compression to it compared to the PAF Pro that was Vai’s original pickup that he was using. It sounds fairly modern sounding, but it’s not super tight like some of the other pickups out there. This really sounds best in even to bright sounding guitars. A lot of people like this in basswood guitars, and that’s the wood it was originally designed for. I’m not sure if I totally agree with that because basswood has a lot of mids, and this pickup also has lots of mids. It can be a bit overbearing if you’re not careful, but I’ve made it work in my Ibanez guitar at the time. Vai also makes it work, so it all depends on your tastes. I really like this in alder, personally. It works great in mahogany as long as the mahogany bodied guitar has a maple top to help extend the high end a bit. Otherwise, I would look towards another pickup instead of this. If you’re looking for a super tight sound, you’re probably better off with the Evolution instead of this too. Otherwise, this offers a nice higher output PAF kinda pickup without sacrificing too much on the dynamics end of the spectrum.

Everyone knows who Steve Vai is. He is a Grammy award winning guitar player who has played with everyone in the last 30 years. He is one of the great forerunners for modern guitar playing and has a very modern tone. He has designed many guitars and pickups to get his signature tone and this is one of the lesser known ones. He is more known for his Evolution pickup but the Breed pickup is one that more people will find usable if they try it out. Steve Vai designed this pickup for some of his guitars to give himself a more subtle and sensitive sound. The Evolution he uses in most of his guitars is a super sharp pickup that gets crazy harmonics and compression. This is more of a tradtional pickup with a fatter sound. It is like a modded PAF pro pickup. It has a fatter sound than the EVO but it still has enough crispness to not get muddy in any mix. Since it is so fat it works well in modern shred guitars which are usually not made of the best woods. Like most Ibanez guitars which are made out of basswood this pickup will thicken them right up and give them a more meaty tone. Which is good since Ibanez guitars come with some of the worst factory pickups in the guitar market. This pickup is EQ'ed very nicely with the high end slightly cut and the mids boosted a bit. This is what you want with a fat pickup like this. You dont want the high end spiked so it makes you sound like a Telecaster or something, although if you want that sound you can get it easily by splitting the coils. You want the mids high and the bass right behind it. This pickup works well in most every guitar. If you are looking for a fat Dimarzio pickup that no everyone knows about the Breed is a good unit in the bridge.

The DiMarzio Breed Bridge was designed for Steve Vai when he wanted a different sound than his original Evolution pickups for his Pogo guitar. It’s quite a bit closer to a normal PAF than the Evolution and not nearly as hot. They feature adjustable allen head bolts on both coils, four conductor wiring and an Alnico 5 magnet.

This pickup is not just a slight tweak of the Evolution; it’s a completely different model. Where as the Evolution was very bright and compressed, this is a more like a modern, fatter PAF Pro with more output but not so much that it’ll compress the crap out of your signal. It has enough grind to where it’ll cut through, but it’s fat enough to where it’ll help make a thinner guitar sound absolutely huge. This works awesome in shredder guitars such as basswood RGs. The treble is slightly pushed back, and the mids are boosted to really give it that punchy sound. The bass is just right in that it’s not too much but also not weak. The pickup can work for nearly any style ranging from blues to metal, but it’s a bit more biased towards the metal side, in my opinion. Split coil sounds are pretty good, and and running it in parallel gives it a somewhat telecaster kinda sound.

This pickup really does work in nearly every guitar out there, and it’s one of my favorite bridge pickups by DiMarzio. It doesn’t matter if the guitar is alder, mahogany, basswood, maple, ash or what. This pickup just seems to mate with whatever wood it goes in. Magnus Olsson is a big fan of this pickup, and nearly all of his recordings feature this particular pickup. If you’re looking for a good output pickup for the bridge, highly recommend checking this humbucker out.

Mounted on a fender stratocaster hss deluxe mid 90s. This mic is a signature steve vai tone derived from the area at the sight of its characteristics but less dull and more open, it's the microphone high gain the least powerful DiMarzio made of alnico 5.

In his clear, this microphone is quite nice and also very good in split.

In crunch, it is the best of it sounds like a heavy and accurate tone area but better.

In heavy saturation, it is very good too, not as much as the d-activator, and again it is better than the tone zone that lacks treble for this kind of thing.

In lead, it's just great. We feel that the microphone was made for this. It combines definition, warmth and sustain.

In summary, an excellent micro super versatile and personally I prefer the banal tone zone. A try for those looking for a humbucker able to touch all styles.