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Hatsubai « More modern and fat PAF »
Published on 03/26/11 at 12:37The DiMarzio AT-1 is the signature pickup that Andy Timmons and DiMarzio came up with for his Ibanez guitars. It’s basically a revision of the PAFs that DiMarzio is famous for. It features slugs on one coil, adjustable pole pieces on the other, four conductor wiring and an Alnico 5 magnet.
Andy Timmons wanted a PAF with some good output and a really fat sound. This thing has a lot of bass and midrange, but it still has some nice clarity going on. The treble is pushed back while the bass and mids are moved fairly heavily to the forefront. DiMarzio talks about this being meant for shorter scale guitars, and while I agree it works in them, I actually think this pickup works best in slightly brighter sounding woods. This pickup seems to be a perfect match with alder or even swamp ash.
Split coil tones on this are very nice, and parallel tones sound awesome. The Alnico 5 magnet really shines in this, aiding in making it sound more alive while keeping everything nice and tidy. It can deliver some great tones both full on and rolled down a bit, so you can actually use the volume knob for different tones. It has enough power to sound fat in the bridge but not so much that it’ll start slamming the front of the amp like crazy. The pickup is more suited to rock players, but it can do metal as well. It’s focused enough to where it’ll handle those more staccato notes, but I can’t say I’m a fan of it when down tuning. This pickup seems to work best when in standard tuning.
If you’re looking for a fat humbucker that sounds like an oldschol PAF but is more powerful and has a little more aggression going on, this pickup should work out great. Just listen to any of Andy Timmons’ stuff, and you should get and idea as to how this pickup sounds.
Andy Timmons wanted a PAF with some good output and a really fat sound. This thing has a lot of bass and midrange, but it still has some nice clarity going on. The treble is pushed back while the bass and mids are moved fairly heavily to the forefront. DiMarzio talks about this being meant for shorter scale guitars, and while I agree it works in them, I actually think this pickup works best in slightly brighter sounding woods. This pickup seems to be a perfect match with alder or even swamp ash.
Split coil tones on this are very nice, and parallel tones sound awesome. The Alnico 5 magnet really shines in this, aiding in making it sound more alive while keeping everything nice and tidy. It can deliver some great tones both full on and rolled down a bit, so you can actually use the volume knob for different tones. It has enough power to sound fat in the bridge but not so much that it’ll start slamming the front of the amp like crazy. The pickup is more suited to rock players, but it can do metal as well. It’s focused enough to where it’ll handle those more staccato notes, but I can’t say I’m a fan of it when down tuning. This pickup seems to work best when in standard tuning.
If you’re looking for a fat humbucker that sounds like an oldschol PAF but is more powerful and has a little more aggression going on, this pickup should work out great. Just listen to any of Andy Timmons’ stuff, and you should get and idea as to how this pickup sounds.