Petrucci 7 pickup question...

[Wayniac]

I've been out of circulation for a bit and have moved a bunch of gear (sold my 1998 hardtail axis as well as a purple 1991, but picked up a nice trans blue Axis recently).

I recently picked 2 different older Petrucci 7 strings... one has the bar style pickups in the bridge - not sure if it was the D-Sonic or the Crunchlab. The other guitar has pole piece style pickups... pretty sure they were both stock. I rarely care what pickups are in a guitar, as long as it sounds good...

The pole piece guitar seemed to cut more, the rail style pickup was "smoother" or had stronger mids. Ironically - both were F serial numbers not too far apart, speced the same (loaded, piezo - one is a Mystic Dream., the other is Desert Gold) - but they sounded noticeably different.

Without pulling them, does anyone know what came stock? Doing some online sleuthing this was all I came across:

The JP6 and JP7 first began production in 2001 and were equipped with custom-wound DiMarzio pickups similar to the Steve's Special (bridge) and the Air Norton (neck)

In mid/late 2006 JP kept the custom-wound neck pickup but switched to the D-Sonic pickup in the bridge (bar towards neck on 6 string, bar towards bridge on 7 string). EB followed with a matching change in production.

In 2009 JP switched to his new DiMarzio CrunchLab bridge / LiquiFire neck pickups and EB followed with a matching change in production.


Can anyone verify? Thanks in advance.

I'll likely post on the thread with the Ser #'s for all 3 as well, just to see how old they are...

 

[johnnyboogie]

Sounds about right!!

Congratulations on the new acquisitions =)

 

[Wayniac]

Thanks! Love these guitars. Great necks & killer electronics setups - so many sound options.
So likely the Desert Gold is pre-2006.... if so - it was a case queen.

 

[PeteDuBaldo]

I've been out of circulation for a bit and have moved a bunch of gear (sold my 1998 hardtail axis as well as a purple 1991, but picked up a nice trans blue Axis recently).

I recently picked 2 different older Petrucci 7 strings... one has the bar style pickups in the bridge - not sure if it was the D-Sonic or the Crunchlab. The other guitar has pole piece style pickups... pretty sure they were both stock. I rarely care what pickups are in a guitar, as long as it sounds good...

The pole piece guitar seemed to cut more, the rail style pickup was "smoother" or had stronger mids. Ironically - both were F serial numbers not too far apart, speced the same (loaded, piezo - one is a Mystic Dream., the other is Desert Gold) - but they sounded noticeably different.

Without pulling them, does anyone know what came stock? Doing some online sleuthing this was all I came across:

The JP6 and JP7 first began production in 2001 and were equipped with custom-wound DiMarzio pickups similar to the Steve's Special (bridge) and the Air Norton (neck)

In mid/late 2006 JP kept the custom-wound neck pickup but switched to the D-Sonic pickup in the bridge (bar towards neck on 6 string, bar towards bridge on 7 string). EB followed with a matching change in production.

In 2009 JP switched to his new DiMarzio CrunchLab bridge / LiquiFire neck pickups and EB followed with a matching change in production.


Can anyone verify? Thanks in advance.

I'll likely post on the thread with the Ser #'s for all 3 as well, just to see how old they are...

That is essentially correct with the timeline. The unknowns are whether or not the bridge pickup is OEM, or swapped by a prior owner. Date of manufacture may help narrow it down, otherwise opening up the control cavity and looking at the wiring may tell you. EB typically puts a piece of white shrink wrap labeled with "B" or "N" on the pickup wiring. If the bridge pickup is not OEM (missing the white shrink wrap) then you would need to pull the pickup out and look at the baseplate for a DiMarzio part number to verify which pickup it is.