Dimarzio EJ Custom DP211/212 Pickups Demo - Series, Parallel, Inner Coil, Outer Coil
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- Опубликовано: 18 авг 2020
- This is a demo of my DP211/DP212 "EJ Custom" pickups by Dimarzio.
This is mainly just demonstrating clean strumming on 4 different settings for each position: Series, inner coil(s), parallel, and outer coil(s).
The guitar I'm playing is a fairly cheap eBay purchase that I have modified heavily. There was no decal on the headstock by the time I got it, but as near as I can tell from researching online, I believe it may be a National Big Daddy LP 457-2 from the 70's.
Update: Per Jack TriPpEr's comment, my statement on the need for 2 switches isn't 100% accurate. As he mentions, "That wasn't quite correct, though, about needing two 2-way switches to change from Parallel Mode to Series Mode for two humbuckers. That limitation is true for 2PDT type pots, but 2 way 4PDT pots do exist, and one of those that can handle that switching for two humbuckers.
www.philadelphialuthiertools....
Fender even makes a 4PDT switch in push-push pot form - the S1.
www.premierguitar.com/gear/mo... "
Good catch, and thanks for the info! 
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Great video man! Was exactly what I needed.
That's great! I'm glad it helped you.
Very useful demo! Great representation of pickups!
Thanks for your kind words. Glad you enjoyed it!
@@guidrummer1 after watching this video I ordered EJ CUstom neck for my tele-style project guitar. Will pair it with Chopper T in the bridge. But I am in doubts about wiring the tele middle position (both pickups). EJ Custom is really bright by its own already, so I am thinking - should I treat it just as single coil in terms of tone, or should I use only one coil for pairing it with the bridge pickup. Would love to hear your opinion based on your experience with EJ pickups.
@@SergeiVlassov Good question there. First, I should put the disclaimer that I've never tried the chopper T myself (though I've heard good things), so I'm left to just look at the specs online and/or listen to some demos to get an idea of how it would play with an EJ Custom neck. Also, as you rightly said, this is all just my opinion so YMMV.
You're right: the EJ is really bright for a humbucker--even in full (series) humbucker mode which I tend to like in neck pickups (having grown up on a bunch of strats and teles). In terms of EQ, I wouldn't be opposed to pairing it with a hot single (or single-sized humbucker) provided that the output level was satisfying to play with in each position.
On that note, I tend to prefer the "perceived" output in each position to be relatively close, but not everyone does, so you may want to take that into consideration as well. (I say "perceived" output because there are some pickups that seem to me to have a difference in volume just because of extreme differences in their EQ/voicing when actually their overall output level on paper is the same.) I tend to perceive a volume drop on many tele neck pickups, and that tends to bother me for whatever reason (just personal preference for feel and sound, I guess). BUT if you like that on a normal tele, you might want to split the EJ neck and just use one of the coils as you suggested. Keep in mind that if you don't also split the chopper T and pair its RWRP coil with the EJ's coil, then you may introduce some 60-cycle hum. But if you do also split the chopper, that may result in a larger volume-drop. Conversely, if you do NOT like the volume drop of a regular tele neck (relative to the bridge), you may want to leave the EJ in series humbucker mode.
Now, all of this was specifically for the middle position as you indicated, so it might take some experimentation (i.e. trying out a few different wirings) to figure out what you like the feel/sound of best in that position. I know that's not always what we want to hear since it's a bit of a pain to wire and rewire things, but it may be your best option since we all have our own personal preferences.
As an interesting side note, looking at the EQ for the EJ Custom and the Twang King (which is paired with the Chopper T in the Richie Kotzen tele) indicates that they aren't all that dissimilar EQ-wise. Granted the EJ is a humbucker and has a decent amount more output than the Twang King, so they would still sound somewhat different, but it may be an indicator that the chopper and EJ will play nicely together. Again YMMV.
Good luck with your tele project!
@@guidrummer1 Thank you very much for such detailed response! Yes, I hate soldering process in confined conditions like in guitars :) So I am trying to reduce the amount of attempts in advance. Your response helps me to reduce the number of options I need to try.
@@SergeiVlassov Yeah, that's fair. I can get pretty aggravated with soldering in small guitar control cavities myself. Ha ha!
I do like a low output ( split or parallel) to high output ( series Humbucker) because you can run your rig on hair of breakup on single and when you switch to Humbucker it’s like an instant overdrive.
Absolutely. Fun to add just a little "hair" onto the tone at the flick of a switch. 😁
Wow those are great sounding pick ups. First time I've heard a Les Paul sound Like a Strat and a Tele! I want to get these pick ups for my Alder body Ibanez for more treble. I mainly play clean- slight low gain crunch.
Hey there! Thanks for your kind words. Yeah, I like these pickups quite a bit. I grew up playing Fenders (mainly my dad's teles until I got my first strat in my teen years), so I generally tend to like bright, low-output pickups (though I do have a Super Distortion and a Super II in my Penco Les Paul copy that I like quite a bit). The EJ Customs are very low output and bright humbuckers, so they fit the bill quite nicely, and I would think they would do well on clean to low-gain-crunch settings. Just for reference, keep in mind that they are even lower in output and brighter than the DMZ 36th anniversary PAF pickups (according to Dimarzio's website, that is--see www.dimarzio.com/pickups/vintage-output/ej-custom-neck and www.dimarzio.com/pickups/vintage-output/ej-custom-bridge vs. www.dimarzio.com/pickups/vintage-output/paf-36th-anniversary-neck and www.dimarzio.com/pickups/vintage-output/paf-36th-anniversary-bridge). You may have to crank up your amp a bit and pull back your treble knob (or roll down your guitar's tone) if you are used to other medium-gain humbuckers.
I believe that the Les Paul-style guitar these are in at the moment is a National "Big Daddy" LP 457-2 from the late 60's/early 70's. I bought it secondhand, and there was no logo on the headstock, but the pointed neckplate, zero fret, headstock inlay, and look of the original hardware and pickups matches pretty well to what I've seen of the National "Big Daddy"--see here: notecannons.com/catalogues/1972/index.php?sfpg=KjE5NzJfc3RydW1fZHJ1bV9wMDguanBnKippbWFnZWZvcm0qKjBhOTU4MjZiYmM1NzBkYzdkYjdkZWY1N2VhNDU2ZDhm
It was meant as a budget guitar for its day, so it's less like a real Les Paul and more like a semi-hollow guitar with a "pancake" (plywood) top. I replaced all of the hardware and electronics, had it refretted, and installed these pickups. The fact that these pickups make a 50-year-old budget model guitar sound so good is pretty cool to me. Unfortunately, I can find very little on what type of wood the guitar is made out of. This person seems to think it's top is spruce, but I have not been able to confirm that with official documentation: www.vintagejapanguitars.com.br/en/1969-70-national-big-daddy-lp-457-2/
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
@@guidrummer1 Hi many thanks for getting back to me. Funny- I have a Dimarzio Super DIstortion 1 in bridge and Super Distortion 3 in th neck of my Ibanez with an Alder body. I really like the sound. I'm planning to swap them for the Eric Johnsons for a brighter sound..or maybe that could be over the top..
@@goldcoins9311 No problem. It's hard to say. You'll definitely have a noticeable volume drop going from any of DMZ's Super series (e.g. Super Distortion, Super 2, or Super 3) to the EJ Customs.
As far as the brightness goes, it will probably be a noticeable difference between the two as well. Some folks on forums have found the EJ Customs to be a little "over-the-top" on the high end as you said, but others really like that.
How soon are you planning on swapping out pickups? If I find the time, I might be able to do a quick-and-dirty comparison of the Super Distortion and the EJ Custom and upload if for you. It definitely would NOT be an apples to apples comparison since the pickups are installed in two different guitars that sound pretty different acoustically; however, I could leave the amp/modeler settings untouched at least.
@@guidrummer1 I probably would do the swap in a few weeks/months. I have to order them first. If you could do a clean comparison, that would be amazing! I mainly play through a clean am (Victory V40). I ike that high-end treble sparkle that Fenders have.
@@goldcoins9311 Sure that makes sense. I'll do a clean comparison. (Love that high-end treble sparkle as well!)
Would you prefer that the clean channel be set up (i.e. volume and tone settings) for the EJ Customs as the "ideal" (or starting point) or the Super Distortion?
I ask because if I set the amp/model where the EJ Customs are in the "sweet spot," then it will probably overdrive when I switch to the SD. On the other hand, if I have the SD in the "sweet spot," then the EJ's may sound a little thin/weak.
Thinking about dropping the Steve Morse model in the bridge and the EJ in the neck of one of my Charvel 750XL's. Gotta do it with Push/Pulls and a Super 5-way tho cause I don't wanna heavily mod them to get this kind of variety.
That sounds like a neat combo. I've never tried the Steve Morse model, but I do like his tones (let alone the fantastic playing). I'd love to see some clips of the ol' Charvels if you get around to dropping those pups in there!
Yeah, I like the "feel" of switches a little better than push-pulls a lot of times (and I didn't mind modding the guitar in this video since it was an old knockoff), but lately I've been favoring push-pulls for extra tones precisely for the reason you mentioned (re: less modding and drilling into a nice guitar).
Thank you for sharing. How are the 2 dpdt switches wired? I can see they are interactive. Even just a clue about the wiring would mean a lot to me. Thank you again.
Hi there,
Great question!
The inspiration from this wiring came from my use of Seymour Duncan Triple Shots and P-Rails on a different guitar, so I wired it something like this diagram from Seymour Duncan (just using dpdt toggles instead of push-pull pots): www.seymourduncan.com/images/wiring-diagrams/2PRail_3G_1VppSPL_1TppSPL.jpg
Keep in mind that the pickups used in this demo are DiMarzios and, therefore, have different wiring color codes than the Seymour Duncans in the diagram above do. To translate the wire colors appropriately, I consulted this page: www.seymourduncan.com/blog/latest-updates/humbucker-wire-color-translation
Feel free to ask if you have any other questions.
@@guidrummer1 Thank you so much. I love what you did with your pickups. The Prail wiring diagram is perfect. Thank you again.
@@jamesnemenyi No problem! Glad you enjoyed it. Good luck wiring your pickups! 🎸
These Eric Johnson pickups are probably my favorite ever; makes me want to get a HH guitar just to put them in it.
Yeah, they're pretty awesome pickups for sure!
Clean this almost sounds like an acoustic. if I like the sound of my guitar unplugged, tone and feel, does that lend to a preference of a low output clean pickup? Aside, from not hearing mistakes as clearly and those nuisances, I am trying to understand this, and recreate this plugged in. Thinking of ej humbuckers w/split. Thank you for your video. !!
Hi Brad!
Great question! I guess I should preface my response by saying that anytime there is a discussion of the output of a pickup, how much that affects the tone vs. how much the tonewood or other factors are involved, etc. you'll get some wildly varying opinions (some more scientific than others). In that vein, I have to admit that my own comments here are also based on my own preferences, limited personal experience, and some online "research" (I use that term lightly ;-) ); so, take all of this with a grain of salt. Second, I can't really make a recommendation on what will sound good to you in your guitar using your rig since a lot of this is personal preference based on our own perceptions of what sounds good to us as individuals. However, I can share my experience and why I used the EJ Customs in this guitar.
With that out of the way, let's take a look at your question: "if I like the sound of my guitar unplugged, tone and feel, does that lend to a preference of a low output clean pickup?" The short answer is "maybe"--I've seen some claim that lower-output pickups tend to allow the natrual (acoustic) character of a guitar to come through more than, say, a high-output pickup--see the third post down (from bananafist on Oct 8, 2014) here for example: www.tdpri.com/threads/low-output-pickups.516278/
Having said that, it's worth mentioning that, for better or for worse, a pickup's voicing can either compensate for something that is "missing" in the acoustic sound of the guitar OR they can exaggerate some of the natural sound of the guitar. Seymour Duncan has a nice post on that here: www.seymourduncan.com/blog/latest-updates/choosing-pickups-to-match-your-guitars-wood. Therefore, you may want to take that into consideration when landing on a specific pickup choice for your guitar (in addition to the output level). Other things to consider are potentiometer (pot) values. I used 500k CTS pots all around in the guitar in this video. Capacitor (cap) values are another thing to consider--I don't recall what value I used for this demo. I think they were .022uF since that's fairly common.
The EJ's, in my opinion, are low in ouput but fairly bright and pretty light on bass/low-end, and that's actually what drew me to them. Context: I grew up playing a lot of Fenders teles and strats (both pretty bright thanks to the single coils and woods used amongst many other things), and playing the neck pickup I originally had in the LP-style guitar in this video left me craving something a little brigher/less bassy. That's purely personal preference on my part as I tend to gravitate toward the sound of strat neck pickups. I liked the neck pickup enough that I ended up getting another EJ Custom bridge second hand and popping it in the same guitar. (For the record, I previously had GFS dream 180's in the guitar. I like that pickup in the bridge but not so much in the neck.)
As a general rule, I also tend to prefer low-to-medium output pickups like the EJ Customs since they don't overdrive an amp too quickly. This makes it easier for me to get what I consider to be a "nice" clean tone. The exception to this rule would probably be the Dimarzio Super Distortion and Super II set I demoed on a different video, but then, those aren't terribly high-output pickups by modern standards so I'm told.
Hopefully that rambling response helps you in your search for the perfect pickups for your guitar. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask.
Glad you enjoyed the video, and thanks for your kind words!
Some other "fun" forum posts on tonewood and low output pickups I found while writing this response:
www.soundonsound.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=82169
forum.seymourduncan.com/forum/the-pickup-lounge/322173-lowest-output-humbucker-in-production/page2
@@guidrummer1 thank you for the references and info. There's a lot to consider. Take aways: I have to calculate the sum of all parts when attempting to create the target tones and output I am trying to achieve. May take a few experiments even if following a recipe that worked for someone else with similar ears or similar parts. Thanks again!🙏🎸🎸
@@wooggeek You nailed it! Good summary. Best of luck finding the right pickups!
Great job .. any problem with noise?
Hey there! Thanks for your comment. If you mean electrical noise (like buzzing), I didn't really notice that any more with the EJ Customs than I have with any other humbucker. The guitar in the video went through a couple of pickup swaps, and all seemed to produce about the same amount of noise--which I generally chalked up to my own poor soldering skills, not the pickups themselves.
@@guidrummer1 thanks for the response. do you still use the EJ pickups?
@@larryboeding240 Another good question. So, let me give a little disclaimer before I answer that: to make some space in my small living quarters (and to make a little cash), I recently thinned the herd down to where I only kept three guitars: my 50th Anniversary Am. Del. Fender Strat, my 80's MIJ Contemporary (Boxer) Tele, and my Warmoth/Fender partscaster tele). The guitar in this video was one of the unfortunate victims--but that didn't really have to do with these pickups (which I quite liked). It had more to do with the fact that I had other guitars that could cover the same bases in a recording environment (which is primarily what I do these days as far as music goes). So no, I don't use them because I sold the guitar.
TL;DR: I still like the EJ Customs, but I don't use them anymore since I sold off most of my guitars. ;-)
Feel free to ask other questions if you have any.
Sounds almost acoustic like.
You know, it kind of does. I wonder if that's more to do with the pickups or the guitar itself? It looks like a solid-body, but it's actually more of hollow-body like a lot of the old Japanese LP knockoffs from the 70's were.
@@guidrummer1 I would think the pickups have more affect than the body.
@@barrypearson644 Yeah, in general, I would too. Just sort of thinking out loud there. Body materials/construction, pickups, amp, etc.--they'll all affect the tone a bit. Though generally with electrics, I tend to think of the pickups and amp as the top two factors.
These are amazing pickups and they sound bad when you just strum cowboy chords like you're playing acoustic. Bad demo.
Good job on the video. Nice audio quality. That wasn't quite correct, though, about needing two 2-way switches to change from Parallel Mode to Series Mode for two humbuckers. That limitation is true for 2PDT type pots, but 2 way 4PDT pots do exist, and one of those that can handle that switching for two humbuckers.
www.philadelphialuthiertools.com/electronics/switches/large-ultra-toggle-switch-4pdt-4-pole-2-way-on-on-chrome/
Fender even makes a 4PDT switch in push-push pot form - the S1.
www.premierguitar.com/gear/mod-garage-the-fender-s-1-switching-system
Ah yes. That's true. I did forget about the 4PDT switches--which is kind of ironic considering I have the S-1 switching in my strat. But then, I didn't realize the S-1 was a 4PDT--it's always been a bit of a "mystery switch" to me.
Thanks for the info, my friend!
Hope you don't mind I threw a bit of this conversation into the description of this video with a credit to you.
@@guidrummer1 that's fine, thanks
@@jacktripperthemusical Sure thing.