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Got a Question About Morse Pickups

Butch Snyder

Butch Snyder

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Joined
Feb 28, 2003
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971
Location
Lebanon, Ohio, United States
Hi All,

I am so in love with my Standard Morse guitar. Thanks Pete!!!!!

The pickups in it are fine, in fact, their very nice; but I was wondering - I have a DiMarzio Air Zone and an Air Norton lying in a drawer. I was thinking about changing the DP200/205 out and installing the AZ/AN in.

What do you guys think the outcome would be?
 
fbecir

fbecir

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Jul 3, 2005
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2,965
Location
Paris, FRANCE
Hello

I built a guitar with a Tone Zone and an Air Norton pickups. The body and neck are made with mahogany, the fingerboard in ebony.
Nice guitar (of course I made it !) but the sound is more raw than with my morse. The pickups are hotter so you have more gain but you lose clarity. Don't get me wrong : the Tone Zone and Air Norton are great pickups but they are more oriented towards heavy sound. The Morse pickups are more versatile.

But, anyway you can try ... you can always put back the Morse pickups.

Good luck with your project
 
Chris G

Chris G

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Mar 12, 2007
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56
Location
Oxford, UK
I had the Tone Zone/Air Norton combo in an old RG-550 and really liked it. However that's a basswood body, maple board and a floating trem so there will be significant differences to the Morse - not least the Tone Zone is High Output as opposed to the Air Zone which DiMarzio lists as Medium Output.

You can compare the specs on the DiMarzio website although you only seem to be able to find the specs of the DP200 by going via Steve on the Player's list. According to that the Morse DP200 is a ceramic magnet and has more treble, slightly less mid and less bass than the Air Zone which is an Alnico magnet.

Given that loads of other players have one other or both of those pickups you'll probably end up sounding like everyone else who has an upgraded RG.

Morse gets a ton of tones out of his guitar so I wouldn't mess with it. Steve and EBMM put those pickups in for a reason.
 
ivanmihaljevic

ivanmihaljevic

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Mar 8, 2007
Messages
846
Location
Zagreb, Croatia
If you're 100% satisfied with the pickups that are in your guitar, there's no reason to change them...
If you're changing pickups, I think you need to have an idea about what you want to achieve with the change and then choose the pickup.
Of course, you can always go back if you don't like it...
 
petruccirocks02

petruccirocks02

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Oct 22, 2006
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1,923
Location
Levittown, PA
Butch Snyder said:
Hi All,

I am so in love with my Standard Morse guitar. Thanks Pete!!!!!

The pickups in it are fine, in fact, their very nice; but I was wondering - I have a DiMarzio Air Zone and an Air Norton lying in a drawer. I was thinking about changing the DP200/205 out and installing the AZ/AN in.

What do you guys think the outcome would be?
Click to expand...

I would say if you wanna see what they sound like go for it. Changing pickups in and out is always reversible. If you don't like the AZ/AN combo in the Morse you can always go back to the Morse pickups.

-Phil
 
tommyindelaware

tommyindelaware

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Dec 24, 2002
Messages
3,274
Location
wilmington , delaware
i am strongly of the opinion thay the morse hummers are better than ANY thing else.
:)

Butch Snyder said:
Hi All,

I am so in love with my Standard Morse guitar. Thanks Pete!!!!!

The pickups in it are fine, in fact, their very nice; but I was wondering - I have a DiMarzio Air Zone and an Air Norton lying in a drawer. I was thinking about changing the DP200/205 out and installing the AZ/AN in.

What do you guys think the outcome would be?
Click to expand...
 
banjoplayer

banjoplayer

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Joined
Jan 8, 2007
Messages
2,745
Location
Ulm, Germany
Hey Butch,
can´t leave your fingers off...:D

I don´t see a reason to change those wonderful Morse PUPs,

But, maybe I missed something (not often here the last weeks) - did we see pics from your new old Morse? Congratulations by the way.
 
Y

yesandno

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Joined
Oct 20, 2003
Messages
104
at the risk of getting my head handed.....

I hated the humbuckers. I got them rewound and the ceramics taken out of them.
When I first got the guitar I was all jazzed up for, "this is going to sound #$%@! great".
I did. It wasn't. I swear...I thought they were....no, HAD to be broken or something.
Oh well.....they work for Steve (my fav, by the way)

The only real reason I switched out the singles is cause I can't take the noise anymore....replaced all my sc's with noiseless.

I'm standing behind chickenwire....start throwing them rotten veggies! :D
 
PugNinjas

PugNinjas

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Mar 8, 2005
Messages
1,556
Location
Back in NY
yesandno said:
at the risk of getting my head handed.....

I hated the humbuckers. I got them rewound and the ceramics taken out of them.
When I first got the guitar I was all jazzed up for, "this is going to sound #$%@! great".
I did. It wasn't. I swear...I thought they were....no, HAD to be broken or something.
Oh well.....they work for Steve (my fav, by the way)

The only real reason I switched out the singles is cause I can't take the noise anymore....replaced all my sc's with noiseless.

I'm standing behind chickenwire....start throwing them rotten veggies! :D
Click to expand...

No reason to brace yourself for a flame attack, after all it's your guitar and you can do whatever you please with it. I garnered plenty of strange looks when I used to say I hated the sound of the neck pickup in the EBMM EVH.:D

I was lucky enough to try out a Morse at the Desert bash. Personally, I love the pickups and the array of sounds they produce, but that's my taste and doesn't have to be yours.

How does the guitar sound now?
 
Y

yesandno

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Joined
Oct 20, 2003
Messages
104
To me, it now sounds more like I 'expected' it to. The rewounds are more, I suppose, like pafs......the neck is very warm sounding and the bridge does its thing there as well.

When used with gain, they're very smooth and push the amps a whole lot better as opposed to the stock, which to me were very harsh and raspy and not smooth at all...I guess the word is grainy.

I know you'll find this hard to believe, but when I first plugged it into one of my marshall 100w heads...at gain settings, mind you, that with a stock fender tele or strat..hit a chord and would sustain for days..... well the SM sounded more like just making the amp slightly break up. No s***. I cried.

I did this with other amps..plug in some of my other guitars...ah, nice smooth sustain....plug in the SM......way noticably less ooomph...grainy..brittle... yuck..
Now, I'm not talking smooth as in smooth compressed tone (which I could get) but smooth with a lot of bite, edge and balls.

I mean, Steve does have, at least live (haven't seen him with the Engls yet) his high gain tone is kinda brash and harsh. But I believe theres a method to his madness in that his guitar really cuts live....so I think they sound that way for a reason. I hated it.

The guitar itself...the neck, the playability is out of this world....I love the neck on this thing. You just touch it and your fingers can't help but go a million miles per hour! :D

I'm not a kid either.....been playing a looooooong time and know how to operate my equipment...if anyone might be wondering. Steve's the best.....I wish he'd go on another smb/dregs tour my way...he's long overdue!!
 
Last edited:
glockaxis

glockaxis

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Dec 21, 2003
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Location
SoCal
My favorite guitar I tried out at the bash was the morse as well. As mentioned in another thread I absolutely love the bridge pickup (plus the feel of the neck). The other configurations sounded great as well but the bridge was what stuck out to me.
 
tommyindelaware

tommyindelaware

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Dec 24, 2002
Messages
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Location
wilmington , delaware
i'll be the last person to flame someone for trying something. w/ so many awesome guitarist in the world......it's very obvious there are more than one way to skin a cat.
i was just tellin ya what i found since steadily using this model since 1991. mabey i was a little bias sounding.
:)
i have put the morse pickups in dozens of customer's geetars.......& and they WERE all thrilled w/ them.
 
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