Planning to get a neck pickup for my guitar

Hi,
I am planning to get a neck pickup for my guitar. At the Bridge it currently has Dimarzio Norton DP109. It's a pretty dark sounding and bass/mid heavy pickup. I am pretty much happy with it and especially the clarity it has at such bassy notes. I want a neck pickup with which will go really well with it. I have already thought about a few options. All of them are DiMarzio pickups.
1. Air Classic Bridge (Use it for the neck becasue of it's high output. Neck model has too low output to suit the Norton)
2. Air Norton
3. PAF Pro
4. PAF Joe
5. Fred

Another idea that pops into my mind is to make this Norton a neck pick up and use something else for Bridge like

1. Evolution
2. Evolution2
3. Steve's Special
4. Breed

This will be for my Tulasi made custom Les Paul. I look for a very dark but very clean sound. I am mainly a Blues Player but the sound is more a High Gain 80s Hard Rock Sound rather than the Vintage kind of sound.

Any suggestions.

 

how bout an EVO 4 a the neck !!!
the chap from SB musicals sells evo's in india 4 rs 4300 with installation and ships anywhere in INDIA

 

hey how much do the pickup cost? ... suppose i plan to get mine changed ...

 

I can get EVO for Rs.2500. I wont buy it here. I have people coming from the US every now and then.

I haven't considered the Evolution Neck Model for the Neck. I cannot use the Bridge Model for the neck though.

 

there are neck EVO's 2..........
https://www.music123.com/DiMarzio-Evolution-Neck-Pickup-i145709.music

 

I know neck model is available. I just haven't considered using Evos. One thing about Evos is I dont have a good reference sound to judge. I dont like Steve Vai's sound. It's too damn thin.

 

I played a guitar with an Air Norton in the neck and Steve's Special in the bridge, LOVED THE SOUND! I think that was the same setup Petrucci used on old DT records.

 

wats the Steve special

 

Yeah he did...also he wired the middle position of the 3 way toggle to select the inner coils in series
He uses it for most slean sounds..the intro to Pull Me Under, To Live Forever etc
I think thats the logical choice for you Ronnie...theyre evenly matched for volume..if you use the Petrucci wiring theres a drop in vol in the middle position though

 

Maybe try Seymour duncan pickups? Dont limit yourself on only dimarzio!

The Seymour Duncan Jazz is a popular neck pickup, or if you want more grit the '59 could be a good choice.

 

Ordered the pickup at last

I ordered for my neck pickup at last.

Had decided on DiMarzio Fred but due to non availability, went ahead and ordered for DiMarzio PAF Pro. Even DiMarzio recommends this for neck position with DiMarzio Norton in the Bridge. So hopefully things turn out good. Will be having this pickup in hand in another 15 days time. Hold on for the feedbacks till then.

 

yeah ... and to-do thing for u : ...
it would be real good if u do a recording with current setup ... something that includes power chords and some leads ... and feedabck ....
and then one with new pickup ... that way we can also hear whatever changes ...

 

Hey Ssslayer,
You know the quality of my recording setup. It cannot get more pathetic. Will try to fix that up before I record anything more.

 

PAF Pro has come at last :dance: :rock: :beer:

I am currently busy building my 2x12 cabinet. So maybe sometime next week I will wire the pickup. Planning to have 3 switching combinations. 1-> Bridge Humbucker, 2-> Neck Split Coil Single 3 -> Neck Humbucker. So my Tulasi Les Paul copy will now have 2 solid Dimarzios Norton and PAF Pro. :beer:

Will let you know about my feedbacks after I install it.

 

Congrats man, I just finished installing a SH-4 JB into my Ibanez RG. I also have a SH-2 Jazz waiting to go into the neck pickup. Will do that tonight and post pics as soon as I'm done.

 

Installed the broken pickup selector switch in my Les Paul Super Fake. Finally the PAF Pro also got inside. Now the guitar is equipped with DiMarzio Norton in the Bridge and DiMarzio PAF Pro in the neck. PAF Pro is supposed to be lesser output pickup compared to Norton is kinda almost the same as percieved by my ear. Pretty hot pickup. The neck position souds like almost a closed Wah WOO sound. Since I use a guitar with 24 3/4" scale and a 10 guage string, there's a natural mud associated with it. So I wanted the pickup to make it sound really tight. The Norton did it's job in a great way. I get a real clean sounding distortion. Somehow I feel the PAF Pro could have been better in removing the mud from the neck position. It gets clean only at treble set at the 2 o clock in my California Sound. This was a slight disappointment. The pickup is not muddy but I wanted it to clean a bit of the mud in the neck position which the pickup failed to do slightly. Well it's not totally clumsy sounding but reasonably clear. But spending $70 over my stock pickup I expected it to be much better. Tone wise it's nothing out of the world but a decent one. I guess this sound sound better in the bridge.

 

A small correction. PAF Pro actually rocks. Much higher in gain than I expected. Preferred something much lower than it is. Great pickup nevertheless. A bit muddy in the low E string but I guess any pickup is gonna do that with a dark sounding setup. I am not sure if anything else can clear that up and still give me a dark sound. Tony Iommi's sound was a bit muddy too :annoyed: at the low strings, so this is fairly acceptable.

 

hey if your PAF pro is high output..its gonna match well with your Norton right?..
if you use a low/medium output pickup like PAF/PAF classic in the neck and high output one like Norton in bridge..then is it possible to get good combination sounds(say,where both pickups are engaged in splilt coil mode)?

 

PAF Pro is not high output. It's of moderate output at about 300mV and Norton is about 350mV. But damn PAF Pro is really hot. Pretty aggressive sounding and gets pretty mellow at neck position. I can get screaming pinch harmonics at the neck position, then you can imagine how hot is this PAF Pro. Actually I wanted a much lower output pickup. It's a standard practice to have a low output pickup on the neck as compared to the bridge.

 

Now I am falling in love with this PAF Pro. It rocks. In Dimarzio site it says that PAF Pro is about 300mV and Norton is about 350mV but PAF Pro seems to be much hotter than Norton.