Dimarzio EJ pickups

[Riffmeister]

Has anyone heard these? There are no clips on the Dimarzio site, not that they are great indicators of the actual sound anyway.

I am looking for a neck pup and have a few in mind, but just can't seem to pick one. The Bridge is going to be a tone zone, and with that I am considering the EJ, the Air Norton and the Liquifire.

My concern with the EJ without even hearing it is that it has a low output and I'm not sure if it will match up well with a higher output humbucker.

To make things more confuseing, I would never consider anything called the humbucker from hell, for the neck, but it says that the thing has almost Acoustical qualities when used as a neck pup.

[toejam]

The Humbucker From Hell is a very bright pickup, sounds like a single coil, makes a great neck pup. I do love the Tone Zone, but I don't know about any of the others you're thinking of.

[Riffmeister]

Thanks Joe!

I guess what concerns me when I hear the word Bright, is that I aslo associate it with shrill.

I do love the sound of single coils in strats though for clean stuff.

How does the HFH sound when playing lead on it with some gain?

[toejam]

I like brighter neck pups anyway. I can't remember how it sounded, as it's been a long time since I heard one, but it was cool from what I recall, not shrill.

[Matt_B]

The HFH is not shrill and I would go so far as to say it has single coil character with distorion but doesn't sound like a single when played clean. I've got one in the neck of one of my PGMs and while I like, my current favorite bright neck pickups is the PAF Joe.

I generally like a neck pickup with a little more treble and a little less bass which the PAF Joe delivers in spades.

[Riffmeister]

Well that kinda defeats the whole purpose for me, I want the single coil sound for clean stuff only

I use my neck pup for everything clean, but I also use it for SOME lead stuff, like when sweeping etc.

I guess I am going to have to go with something, then split it for clean stuff to try and get close to a single coil sound while still being able to have a thick humbucker sound also.

[Hellbat]

P-rails and one of those ring mount tap switches?

[fuel0707]

My concern with the EJ without even hearing it is that it has a low output and I'm not sure if it will match up well with a higher output humbucker.

Be aware that neck pickups don't need to have nearly as much output as a bridge pickup in order to be a good match. The strings vibrate more over the neck pickup than they do over the bridge pickup, so a neck pickup doesn't have to be as "strong" in order to produce similar output to a bridge pickup.

To make things more confuseing, I would never consider anything called the humbucker from hell, for the neck, but it says that the thing has almost Acoustical qualities when used as a neck pup.

I have a version of the HFH in the bridge of one of my Groshes and it's really nice. The HFH is actually meant to be a humbucker that's closer to a single coil in terms of tone. I think DiMarzio used to say that it was sort of "evil" that a 'bucker could sound like a single coil so that's why they named it the HFH.

One thing that did concern me about the DiMarzio Eric Johnson pickup is that DiMarzio says that EJ asked them to come up with a humbucker that would sound like the old FilterTrons on a Gretsch that he liked. FilterTrons are cool but I'm not certain that I'd want that tone out of something like a Les Paul or some other solidbody. It might work but knowing that Eric was interested in a 'Tron tone sort of caught my eye when I was hoping that he was going for a "violin tone" from a humbucker.

The best advice I could give is to call or email DiMarzio and ask them your question. I got in touch with Steve Blucher when I was choosing pickups for one of my Groshes and Steve was really great in answering questions and making suggestions.