Which Dimarzio humbuckers would be good for Jazz for small semi-hollow?

[MorganP]

I bought a relatively cheap Chinese semi-hollow headless guitar as a travel guitar. I quite like it so I want to upgrade the PAF style pickups...

I might put a Seth Lover or Benedetto pickup in the neck as there is a pickguard but I will need to use a Dimarzio for the bridge as the bridge is surface mount and the pickup legs need to be narrow as they installed an OEM Chinese pickup with extremely narrow legs...

I was thinking maybe Dimarzio Fortitude or 36th Anniv. PAF bridge matched with a Seth Lover or Benedetto neck...or possibly an Air Classic...

For the neck I am looking for a traditional fat, warm, dark Jazz sound.
For the bridge I would like a blues to metal sound...

Any ideas? Thanks!

[gitman]

Any PAF type will do - for Metal you‘d need a booster/pedal anyway and such a med. loud pickup will always work for a useful Blues Sound.

[Moita]

Interesting guitar. How does it play?

[icr]

This Ibanez came to me with Dimarzio PAF pickups. It sounded bad (distorted/overdriven) with it's 1K pots and open bobbins.



Exact same pickups with covers and 300k pots.

Amazing tone!

The point...pickups are only a part of the equation.

[MorganP]

Pretty good actually. Can't quite get used to the fanned frets higher up the neck but for a cheapish guitar at $600 it's actually pretty good to play. I haven't even asked my tech friend to improve it or anything. I found some cheap necks in China that are the same style but 25.5 scale. I think I will change it to that. It's just a nice little travel guitar.

[jads57]

So due to the 24 frets, the neck pickup is further back than on a std 22 fret guitar. When the pickup reads the string vibration from that point it can be quite bright or mid heavy.

For my Carvin Headless Holdsworth I installed a DiMarzio Rail StratTone Zone pickup. Had a cover made for it.
It’s a powerful double rail single coil size pickup. This way it only reads the area closer to the neck position. Works quite well for a darker Jazz tone.

[MorganP]

That's a nice idea!!!

[Woody Sound]

Roger Sadowsky once told me that his archtop pickups are basically the DiMarzio 36th Anniversary.

[Jim Soloway]

I've always had very good experiences with the 36th Anniversary. I've had then in several of my personal guitars and used them in dozens of the guitars that we built.

[Bflat233]

Roger Sadowsky once told me that his archtop pickups are basically the DiMarzio 36th Anniversary.

I heard him say the same at a talk he gave last year with respect to his SS-15 and FV models.
I put that pick-up in an Ibanez PM35 and it sounded full and warm without losing any brightness when soloing on the 1st and 2nd strings.

[MorganP]

I actually sent an email to Roger Sadowsky a few days ago as I loved the pickups on a Frank Vignola signature I used to own. Yeap... 36th Anniv PAFs or at least based on them...great pickups!