« Kinda reminds me of the older JB pickups »

Andy Timmons is an awesome player, and he always had a great tone. I attribute a lot of that to the fact that I naturally gear towards the Mesa/Boogie tone, but he also has a great taste in pickups. In his custom Ibanez guitar, he has this AT-1 pickup, and it sounds great. In fact, it sounds a lot like the old school JBs of yesteryear. For those who don’t know, the JB used to be made differently than it is today. Today’s JBs are a bit harsher and not quite as organic as they used to be. The DiMarzio AT-1 seems like an attempt at trying to sound like the old Duncan JB pickup from way back when. It has this very pleasing midrange to help push the amplifier, but it isn’t so hot that it’s trying to absolutely destroy the amp with input. The best thing about this is how nicely it responds to volume control adjustments. You can really work the volume knob for amps that don’t really have a master volume. I’m talking about old school Marshall amps. In fact, that’s what this pickup seems to be geared towards. Put this in a stratocaster and run your guitar through an old JMP, and you have a magical tone. Granted, Andy Timmons uses a mahogany bodied guitar with a Mesa/Boogie, but either works great. His tone is dark and smooth, whereas the Marshall one would be grindy and in your face for that perfect hard rock sort of tone. This pickup can even do metal, although it probably wouldn’t be as great as some of the other pickups that DiMarzio has to offer. This is one of my top five favorite bridge pickups that DiMarzio has to offer, so if you ever get the chance, I think it’s worth giving it a spin. It should work in pretty much any body wood you can think of.