« Not for me »

I liked this pickup for a while, I should say. In my prog metal days I had it in an alder super strat along with a tone zone pickup in the bridge. I can tell you what this pickup is good at. If you've heard John Petrucci's lead tone, this is that tone. It's got a lot of that low end punch yet very clear high end even on the high notes. It can sound a little piercing at times but it is a lead pickup so you want it to come through. I would not say the Air Norton is tight but in certain guitars and certain amp settings it can be. Otherwise it's normally pretty boomy and loose in the bass. Most pickups this hot have a lot of hair when they get hit with gain, but the Air Norton retains a clean singing tone even with a lot of distortion. If you are into that, it's a very cool, although non traditional lead sound. If you like hair on your notes, stay away. The AN just doesn't take gain like a normal pickup.

I found it also sounds great for parallel wiring. Normally, I would say the Air Norton was only useful to me as a lead pickup, but switch it to parallel and it does wonderful clean tones. It's almost like a single coil really. It splits pretty decently too.

Eventually though, i grew tired of the processed tone of the air norton. For my uses, it's useless for rhythm. It's voiced too aggressively for lead and chords suffer as a result. I've since switched to more traditional pickups in the neck which prove to be more useful for a variety of things. However the AN is a great lead pickup for a lot of styles. It has a modern sound. I can see why so many people like it.