Review Of Dimarzio Evo 2

[davidmichael]

After troubleshooting one of my 20th anniversary RG550's,we finally figured out it had an intermittent short in the neck pickup {after weeks of it driving me crazy as it would work when Id take it to my tech but not work most of the time at my house.Still aint figured that one out}so he put a Duncan he had there in and told me to try it for a week.worked fine so that told us it was indeed the pickup.

Decided if I was gonna change pickups I would put a whole set in that would supposedly match up well.

I wanted a set of Bare Knuckle Nailbombs,but unfortunately they were a little outa my price range at this point of time.

My next choice were Dimarzio Evolutions,as I have a 2003 Ibanez Jem with them in it.I love the Evolution's xcept for the fact that the bridge pickup has "Ice pick in the ears highs" and is very unforgiving as far as showing the slightest mistake or variance in pick attack.{Unfortunately I'm not Steve Vai.}

Then I started reading about the Evo 2's.

It was designed to take just a little off the top end and open up the headroom in the mids and adding more overall clarity.

Im a little on the paranoid side but finally brought myself to buy them.

I purchased them from Musicians Friend and finally got them to understand that I wanted the Evolution set but to substitute the bridge for the Evo 2,as it cost the same if purchased individually.At first they said no,but then they said they would sell me the pickups individually and work the price down to what the set would cost,which they did and even threw in a Veterans day sale discount.Anyways I got a very good deal !!!!

After getting the guitar back home and playing it through every amp and scenario I could think of,in my opinion this is an excellent pick up that actually does what it said it would do{which doesn't happen often at least for me}.

Almost forgot .The harmonics are awesome !!!! And it holds it tone well as the volume is rolled down .

Couldn't be happier with the pickups and the way Musicians Friend worked with me.

Edited November 11, 2014 by davidmichael

[Rudi]

David,

Re: Evolution 2’s

I’m not familiar with these (or the original). Can the sound be compared to Fender / SDs / Gibson / Lundgren etc?

[davidmichael]

I don't really know how to answer that question.

After playing this pickup for a week as much as possible and still have fingertips left I thought I could give a better answer.

First off ,from Dimarzio's site:

"The original Evolution® Bridge Model did exactly what Steve Vai wanted it to do: kick butt and produce serious scream. Then he wanted something a little more complex — the same basic tone with increased headroom and dynamics, so that the sound kills on 10 and cleans up when the volume is rolled down. With a little less power than the original Evolution®, Evo 2â„¢ balances perfectly with the Evolution® Neck Model and performs equally well with high gain and vintage amps"

"Although Steve was happy with the basic sound of the original Evolution® bridge pickup, he felt that a pickup with similar tone and less output would be useful — particularly for live performances. He also requested the frequency response in the 4000Hz to 5000Hz range to be reduced slightly compared to the original Evolution® Bridge Model. The Evo 2™ accomplishes these tasks by using a less powerful magnet to reduce the pickup’s power, and patented Virtual Vintage® technology to alter the frequency response without drastically changing the overall tone. The Virtual Vintage® technology also allows the Evo 2™ to produce a very good single-coil sound when switched to split mode"

It is still considered a high output pickup with a 375 MV output, and the.tone responses are as listed:treble 6 /mids 7.5 /bass 6 .

I find Dimarzio's description to be quite accurate.

As far as comparing it to another pickup , it really doesn't fit in the category with any of the pickups listed in your question.Maybe a little like a Duncan but without the "Vowel Tone" and a whole lot more harmonics.The only other guitars I have that produce harmonics like this are some of my Carvin's.

As for my personal description: Excellent crunch and sustain when wide open ,roll the volume down to around 8 and it calms down very nicely while maintaining its clarity which it also does wide open.Even rolling the tone to about zero and it still doesn't get muddy. As far as on clean channels it still retains the qualities mentioned above ,and that's when it slightly reminds me of a Duncan , as far as the well pronounced mids.

Hopefully I'll be able to post some sound clips soon as my next purchase will be some Shure 57's to mic my amps.

I know this really didn't answer your question , but its as good as I could do for right now .

[john]

Hey David

Nice to see a review... Some basic ratings might help...

Playability

Tone

Versatility

Beauty

Price

Value For Money

Just a suggestion

[Rudi]

Good answer David. I have a pretty good idea now.

 

You also prompted me to look up 'Bare Knuckle'. Interesting.

[davidmichael]

Hey John

I actually thought the original and follow up post did a pretty good job of describing the characteristics of the Evolutions , but I just plugged it into my amp and will try to describe what I hear as I play , and as I'm sure you know , tone isn't easily described but here goes.

To start with I'm playing through a Mesa Nomad 100 , with the knob and slider EQ's all flat ,which isn't where Id usually run them.As I'm sure you know Mesa's arn't known for being a plug and play amp.They take a little messing with to get the sound your looking for and the slightest tweak makes a big difference. Also I'll run through the clean and channel two which is pretty heavy distortion.

 

On clean bridge: As for chording it it has a very even volume response at all strings with the D and G being just a tad bit louder to accent the mids.

As for playing individual notes , they all ring out very pronounced , even playing fast or when playing arpeggiated chords.

There is still a slight bit of grit in them but if you roll the volume down to 8 there pretty much totally clean.You can hear some harmonic rings even if your not trying to grab one [but not in a bad way].

 

On clean neck: Pretty much the same as above except obviously more bass to it and its actually pretty clean with the volume wide open.

It actually doesn't sound quite as bassy as some of my other guitars neck humbuckers but as I tend to play backwards half the time playing leads on the neck and rythms on the bridge , it works very well for me.

Also the clarity an harmonics are still there .

One other thing is there isn't a huge volume difference between the neck and bridge which I like ,partially due to the way I set the heights which are pretty close to the same as far as the relation to the strings.

As for spitting either humbucker and combining it with the center pickup ,you get pretty much what would expect out of a Strat on position 2 or 4 ,but not quite as quacky , as well as the center by itself sounding somewhat like a Strat in position 3 . As for the volume when splitting , wide open split pretty much equals the buckers on 8 which is pretty typical .

 

Distortion: Pretty much as described above with the harmonics being even more pronounced and tons ot sustain 

I try to play a lot of stuff where I will leave certain open strings ringing and play lead runs over top of them . It works very well with these pickups as you maintain the separation between the open and strings being played in the lead run.

Also in distortion the bass from the neck pickup is more emphasized and stays very tight .

 

As for the other things you said I should describe.

 

Playabilitty: these pickups are hot and have a lot of bite.they will mellow out to a certian extent but if you want to play totally clean,these probabbly aren't what you want.

 

Tone:The separation of the strings will allow you to dial in most tones xcept super clean.

 

Versatility: Noted above.

 

Beauty: They are flat black with double allen pole bobbins , but you can get them in pretty much any color you want ,and the guitar is black ,and an anniversary model [they only made 1987 of them] so I wanted it it still look original .

 

Price: As I said in my original post I got them from Muscians Friend and they worked with me on the price.$140 for all three pickups delivered.

 

Value for the money: Considering that almost any single humbucker will cost a minimum of approximately $90 I think it was an excellent deal that I am 100% satisfied with !!!!

 

Hope this gives more insight to what these pickups will do , If your  not familiar with Steve Vai , The Evolution;s are the pickups he's been using since 1992. Here is a link to one of my favorite songs he does that shows the versatility of the Evo's. 

Edited November 20, 2014 by davidmichael

[john]

I think your original and follow up did too! I just meant you could consider augmenting it with a simple rating, like 8/10 for value for money. One thing my own experience in writing reviews has told me is that people like ratings / scores, even if they love detail. Often it seems to help them decide if they want to read the fuller review or not, or simply use it as an eyeball measusre of how strongly you felt about each thing. That said you have come back and added more meat to the bone. Good stuff, thanks David.

[TapperMike]

Quite often keeping the tone up with the volume rolled off is a matter of how the volume pot is set up.

 

[davidmichael]

We call that a treble bleed circuit.

I think pretty much every guitar I have that I'veopened up has one.

Keeps it from getting too dark as the volumes rolled down.

You can also change resistances depending on how you want the guitar to react .

[Rudi]

The sound & tonal range from the Steve Vai clip is great. Nice warm tones in the 1st two minutes.