DiMarzio DP222 D Activator-X Bridge

I REALLY disliked this pickup. This isn't to say these pickups are bad, just are NOT anything I was looking for and nothing I'd ever buy again. They looked cool, white pickups in a red guitar with black hardware, but looks isn't everything. They're very modern sounding pickups, tight and aggressive but they have this HUGE mid bump to them that to me sounded like a cocked wah on all the time. No matter what I did I couldn't EQ it out and just sounded horrible. I had these for a few days and just couldn't take it anymore, ripped them out and sold them ASAP. I play metal and many people seem to think high output = metal, no tone searching required. I'm very picky about my tone and these were just a big step backwards for what I wanted. I’ve always heard the saying “if you like the tone of the guitar and want to build off of it go Seymour Duncan. If you want the guitar to do something different go Dimarzio”, and for these pickups at least I’d have to agree with that. It was a huge change going from these to a Duncan distortion. Dimarzio does have a cool policy though, if you buy a pickup and dislike it you can swap it through them for another of your choice. So in theory you can go through their entire line of pickups looking for the perfect one without actually having to buy each one. Seymour Duncan has a similar policy so that’s good fur us. I’ve played this, the Super Distortion and the Crunch Lab, that’s pretty much it from Dimarzio. I really liked the Super Distortion and the Crunch Lab so I definitely won’t write off Dimarzio. Just happened to be these pickups I don’t like. Again these aren't bad, just in no way anything I'd want.

Dimarzio is a modern pickup maker making pickups for modern music. The D Activator-X is a super modern pickup but it is based on a nearly 30 year old design. The pickup is a more refined version of the old X2N. This pickup has two huge ceramic rail magnets that pick up every signal from here to Calcutta. It has four conductor wiring so you can split the coils on this pickup. I have never tired this but I hear that the split tones on these big rail pickups are pretty decent. Because of the rail design you do not have to worry about if the pickup is F spaced or not these rails are everything spaced. The X2N was designed to be the bottom line when it came to passive pickup output. It doesnt clean up well and it has a trebly sound but it can push and amp into overdrive. With this new pickup you get a more refined sound but still retain a lot of that raw aggression that the X2N had. This pickup has a slightly dialed back output. The old X2N had like a 16K output while this one is about 14K. The EQ on the pickup has been changed which is the biggest difference. While the X2N was slanted towards having a high end sound this new pickup has the mids boosted on the sound and the treble dialed back. This lets the pickup clean up better due to having less harsh high end in the sound. There is also a neck version of this pickups which I think is crazy. I never imaged they would make an X2N for the neck position. I guess modern knowledge has given the makers ability to tame some of their crazy old pickups from back in the day. If you are a fan of the old X2N monster but want a slightly more refined pickup Dimarzio is making it now.

The DiMarzio D Activator-X Bridge is kinda like a reinvention of the well known X2N but quite a bi tmore versatile. This pickup has the two huge blades that the original X2N had, four conductor wiring and a ceramic magnet shoved inside it.

This is pretty much a modern take on the old school X2N of yesteryear. The X2N has been out for a very long time, and this new take on the pickup is very similar to the X2N while still offering some cool new features not found in the original. For one, it’s a bit more open sounding. This helps aid in note clarity. Output voltage, while lowered, it still really high. This thing is guaranteed to slam the front of your amp. The highs are rolled back a little more compared to the X2N, so it’s not quite as bright. It has a similar low and midrange to the X2N, so you still get that powerful sound that bands like Death successfully showed.

Split coil tones on this are very nice, just like the X2N. In fact, there’s not much difference in tone between this split and the X2N split. Parallel is the same way. Both tones end up sounding fairly bright, but it’s not a piercing sound like some of the other pickups out there. It works in just about any wood combination you can think of, but I think it works best in mahogany, personally. It really aids in making a powerful sound with some good midrange.

If you’re looking for a new, more modern take on the X2N, check out the D Activator-X Bridge. It’s a little more versatile than the older one, and while it doesn’t have the power the old one did, it still has a ton on tap to slam the front end of any amp out there.