DiMarzio Red Velvet DP174 BK

I bought these intended for mid and neck positions for an HSS Stratocaster, well aware it's intended as bridge pickup. My reasoning was I wanted the pickups to sound closer to a Humbucker or P90-ish pickup, as I had also ordered a PAF-Joe for a bridge pickup.

As will become evident there is the presence of a base-plate that connects the alnico slugs and makes for a warmer sounding pickup over all. This, the Red Velvet, is supposed to be the base-plate, bridge version of the now discontinued Blue Velvet, I believe.

Used in other positions this pickup therefore should be treated like a humbucker and thus is likely to require tone and volume potentiometers and capacitors to be replaced to those intended for humbuckers or they will sound quite bassy. Noteworthy is that this truely is a single coil and not to be confused w. humcancelling pickups of DiMarzios manufacture. thomann Having said that I don't find these particularly noisy at all.

What I appreciate with these are that although they do indeed sound like single coils, they still have some sort of humbucker meat in the mids, that make for a cocky and thick tone that is somehow slightly reminiscent of a Telecaster pickup in that it 'sings' rather than 'stings'.

I would perhaps not recommend these for someone looking for traditionally Stratty tones, but rather someone who wants a Strat with the attitude of a Tele or a P90 equiped guitar in the bridge position. That it does very favourably, and with some modification it works nicely in other positions as well.

I have 2 of these, neck and middle, paired with a DiMarzio AT-1 in the bridge with a single 500k volume pot in an Ltd SN-1000. I've not tried them with a 250k pot.

This bridge version hits that sweet spot of having enough output to keep up with a medium output pickup and still retaining all the clarity you expect, without getting harsh or thin sounding.

I'm covering anything from the 50's to present day in the function band with this setup.

I'd definitely suggest not going higher than the output of an AT-1. I have some Dimarzio Tone Zones in other guitars, and they would be too beefy to match with the Red Velvet.

Well constructed, as you'd expect from Dimarzio, and should last my lifetime!

Very happy with it.