NEW GEAR DAY: DiMarzio LiquiFire and Crunch Lab pickups

Published July 15, 2009 | By Peter Hodgson

Woohoo! Don’t ya just love New Gear Days. Today the mailman arrived to bring me a brand-spankin’-new set of DiMarzio 7-string pickups – the LiquiFire 7 neck pickup and the Crunch Lab 7 bridge pickup, the new John Petrucci signature models.

I’ll install the new pickups into my black Ibanez RG7620 7-string tonight and I’ll record a demo/review over the next few days, but in the meantime here is some info about the pickups:

Crunch Lab
One thing has stayed consistent throughout John Petrucci’s long and successful career: the DiMarzio pickups in his guitars. John has been pushing the envelope of progressive metal since the late eighties, and the new DiMarzio Crunch Lab Bridge Model ensued from our most recent collaboration with John. He used it throughout Dream Theater’s tenth studio album, Black Clouds and Silver Linings.

John swears this is the best live and studio sound he has ever had, and the name says it all crunch is what it’s all about with a big, tight sound that’s neither muddy nor thin.

Tech Talk: The Crunch Lab is noteworthy (bad pun alert!) for what it doesn’t do – it’s not a screamer, and it’s not about thundering lows. Its physical appearance is identical to the D Sonic, but the internal design is a lot different. It’s louder, and the highs have more depth. The lows and mids are more open, and this is crucial for playing chords with body and presence through a gained–out amp. The voicing of the pickup is also different enough to the point that John prefers the Crunch Lab to be installed in almost all of his guitars (including the JP Bari) with the solid bar toward the neck, regardless of the guitar’s tuning.

LiquiFire
One thing has stayed consistent throughout John Petrucci’s long and successful career: the DiMarzio pickups in his guitars. John has been pushing the envelope of progressive metal since the late eighties, and the DiMarzio LiquiFire Neck Model resulted from our most recent collaboration with John. He used it throughout Dream Theater’s tenth studio album, Black Clouds and Silver Linings.

John swears this is the best live and studio sound he has ever had. He wanted a neck pickup with a flowing, singing solo tone when used with a heavily overdriven amp and a clear chord sound with a clean amp setting.

Tech Talk: Since the mid 1990s, John’s neck pickup sound has been based on either the standard Air Norton or the custom version in his Ernie Ball guitars. The LiquiFire has several significant differences. Its treble response is warmer and smoother while bass response is tighter and brighter. The total sound has a more focused voice.

Posted in Dimarzio, Dimarzio Crunch Lab, Dimarzio Liquifire, Dimarzio Petrucci

5 Responses to NEW GEAR DAY: DiMarzio LiquiFire and Crunch Lab pickups

Daniel says:

July 15, 2009 at 1:04 am

Great idea! Can't wait to hear your demos. BTW: I love 'new gear days' as well. :-)

Reply
Darien says:

July 15, 2009 at 4:59 am

how did you get those pups?? I can't find them on the internet, actually I tried to search on google but this showed up…would really apreciate response thx!

Reply
Peter says:

July 15, 2009 at 6:04 am

Contact your local dealer, I haven't seen them on any sites yet either.

Just trying them for the first time right now and they're AMAZING. Crunch Lab is kinda like the D Sonic but warmer. LiquiFire has a great 'burn' around the notes while still sounding rounded and vocal.

Reply
john says:

July 24, 2009 at 8:56 pm

where did you get yours?

Reply
Peter says:

July 24, 2009 at 9:14 pm

I got mine direct from DiMarzio. You can order them from them or from any dealer, even though they aren't in online stores yet.

Reply

NEW GEAR DAY: DiMarzio LiquiFire and Crunch Lab pickups

5 Responses to NEW GEAR DAY: DiMarzio LiquiFire and Crunch Lab pickups

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

ARCHIVES

SITEMETER