Another LP pickup suggestion question (but different this time)

[Prawnik]

Been a long time since I have posted...guess I am back.

I got bored the other night and installed a NOS diMarzio Al DiMeola signature pickup in the bridge of my old Les Paul. The results were pretty cool; the sound is sort of like a P90 on elephant steroids, or an even bassier Dirty Fingers.

I'll wire it up for series-parallel switching as soon as I scrounge up an appropriate potentiometer. This pickup reads around 10.8 Ohms in series for what that's worth (not much, I know), but it seems a lot louder. A lot of the time, I had to back off on the gain, especially playing chords. The sound is typically ceramic, not especially "vintage" but it works well with 1970's Marshalls. Clean was meh, but I have other guitars for clean bridge tones.

What I haven't figured out is what neck position pickup will compliment this pickup in the bridge. Something reasonably bright, something that can play clean and work well with the bridge when in the middle position.

I like Slash's neck position tones when he plays distorted and I am allergic to "woman tone".

[darkbluemurder]

Looks like you would need a beefy neck pickup to balance with a powerful bridge pickup. VHII neck maybe.

Cheers Stephan

[Philly Q]

You don't feel like trying to get hold of a NOS Al DiMeola neck model?

[Telerocker]

A VHII or a RiffRaff-neck.

[Prawnik]

You don't feel like trying to get hold of a NOS Al DiMeola neck model?

I actually thought about it. Hard to find and I like guitars that have a different voice when you move from neck to bridge position, though.

[Philly Q]

Just dug out my old DiMarzio catalogues from the 1980s!  The Al Di Meola neck and bridge models had very similar DC resistance, but the descriptions are quite different.  Here's what the '87 catalogue says about the Al Di Meola neck model:

"High fidelity" is what the Al Di Meola Neck Model is all about.  It captures every nuance of every note, from low to high, and produces more harmonics than you've ever heard from a neck pickup.  We've accomplished this with a patented design which assigns bass frequencies to one coil, and treble frequencies to the other. In the past, pickups with high fidelity reproduction always sounded sterile.  The DP201 isn't sterile at all - it's musical.

[darkbluemurder]

I remember that catalogue, too.

Since the VHII neck has a strong offset in the coils it probably comes closest to DM's description even though I am not sure whether BKP wanted to achieve such assignment of frequencies to coils. Although I would not call the VHII neck "hifi" sounding but I would agree that it is "musical". My recommendation stands.

Cheers Stephan

[ericsabbath]

"bass frequencies to one coil, and treble frequencies to the other"

different gauges, maybe?

[Philly Q]

"bass frequencies to one coil, and treble frequencies to the other"

different gauges, maybe?

Yeah, and presumably underwound/overwound (Wombling free....)

I don't know which of DiMarzio's patent numbers applied to that pickup, you can tell from the numbers if they have offset coils, if they're Airbuckers, Virtual Vintage or whatever.

I don't think one coil could only hear bass frequencies and the other treble, though, that's impossible!

[Prawnik]

I always thought that one of the "hallmarks" of diMarzio humbuckers was symmetrical resistance between both coils. Guess I was wrong.