Ibanez RG331M: DiMarzio

I have run out of Duncans to try, sounds ridiculous but that's the case in the mean time. My Ibanez RG331M received a pair of DiMarzios recently:

• Neck: Air Zone
• Bridge: Super Distortion

The Air Zone should be your pick if you wish for a good neck response for both clean & distortion applications. It was created to the PAF specs but with a little more kick. This pickup is somehow less preferred for those of us who have tried the Air Norton but I've heard the Air Norton in use, I must say the Air Zone is less rounded at the top end & has a stronger midrange response- my kind of pickup, especially so when it needs to see some solo mileage for me. Also, it's one of the most appealing split coil voicing if you think you need this application coming from a humbucker. The Air Zone drops its output to emulate a real-sized single coil pickup & the clarity + twang are present for the taking. I think this peculiarity got Beez baffled after he wired it to my guitar, he heard a 'broken' sound, a pickup sounding much lesser in its split incarnation as compared to its full humbucking mode. He rewired it to make sure I wasn't short-changed but there's really nothing wrong with the pickup :-) In fact, I think this peculiarity made the Air Zone special & it's appealing to me.

The Super Distortion had been my go-to DiMarzio, it used to serve me well & it's serving me well here in this guitar. It's a monster with distortion & doesn't wimp out in clean mode unlike other 'distortion' pickups. It's got nothing extra, really. Just a good ol' PAF voicing with lots of boost so it works for everything. Due to its name, the pickup is shunned by those looking for a tamed output-type of pickup.

Thanks Beez, for the thorough pickup inspection- thumbs up!