« Vai's other famous pickup »

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.