main differences between chopper T and fast track T.

[dnd2001]

main differences between chopper T and fast track T.

i own a MIA tele. I play jazz/rock/funkfusion. And i am looking for a smoother tone. and a little more output. I got my eyes on dimarzio, the fast track T and the chopper T. One of my favorite guitarplayer richie kotzen has loaded his tele with these pups. I heard that in the early days he used the fast track, but his signature model is loaded with the chopper. When i watch the specs on the dimarzio site its difficult to see the differences, the main thing is the output. Its hard to find out what the tonal differences are. The specs almost seem the same.

Maybe someone had some experience with these pups and can tel me the main differences in tone.

[11 Gauge]

Both similar, but the Chopper is a bit thicker sounding, with a more polite top end.

The Fast Track is very much typical Fender single coil sounding. The most amazing thing about it is that it works for both clean or dirty tones - somehow the glassiness seems to come through despite the amount of overdrive. For evidence of this, grab some of Sonny Landreth's work from around the time that the FT came out - South of I-10 comes to mind.

For the styles that you play, the knee-jerk response would be for the Chopper. But then I listen to someone like Oz Noy, and I could imagine the Fast Track working just as well.

I don't think that you could go wrong either way, really.

[straightface]

I have a Chopper in the bridge and the Fast Track1 in the neck. The Fast Track 1 is actually a strat pickup. I agree with 11Gauge it works very well for dirty and clean. The Chopper is great for rock/blues, think Black Keys.

[teleyouk]

Originally Posted by 11 Gauge

For the styles that you play, the knee-jerk response would be for the Chopper. I don't think that you could go wrong either way, really.

...And I would add there is a third DiMarzio dual blade pickup that would be considered, for your use: their new Air Norton T (DP384) ; warm sounding (jazz, fusion, rock), and working well in split mode (funk, fusion).
These precisions come from DiMarzio's site, but I can say I've never been disappointed by their PUps descriptions in the past.

[elelpe]

hi dnd2001, have you made a decision between chopper t and fast track t? i have the same dilemma

[Andy B]

I've got both in my Tele's. I use the Chopper T with a Duncan Vintage Firebird Neck in my Thinline & 71. Definietly a humbucker sounding guitar. I use the Fast Track T in my 83 along with a Fast Track 1 in the neck. This is my Strat sounding Tele. What I think is most important is that whatever pickups you use balance in terms of brightness. A very bright bridge pickup & a thicker humbucking bridge pickup never seem to let you get good overall tone. I went from a Barden T bridge to the Chopper T to get a balanced sound. With the Barden, when you set things to sound good & not too biting the humbuckers were way too muddy. Turn the treble up & your ears bleed when the humbucker sounds good.
Hope this helps!

Andy

[elelpe]

i get the picture. many thanks, andy!

[Hoodster]

I thought I would resurrect this thread since I'm trying to make the same decision -- I'm looking to add some beef to a Thinline bridge position while maintaining some versatility.

Which of these two options would work better with 250 K. pots?

[pullchord]

Just put a Chopper in the bridge of my "Super Tele" (love to post a pic but don't know how {just a dumb guitar player}). So far, I've had a Fender Noisless, a Rio Grande, Tallboy, and a Duncan. I've wired the Chopper using a mini-toggle so that I have series, parallel, and single coil. I now have the best of all world's. The Chopper in series mode approximates the thick sound I get with my Paul.

[Chrismo]

The Chopper T is a rockin' tele pickup. As described, a bit thicker and definitely crunches a bit. Haven't had any output issues with the Twang King in the neck, and I think output wise it's similar to the other "rails" they have.

I would think the Chopper T works best with 250K pots, as the Fast Track T is supposed to sound like a louder, twangier bridge humbucker. 250K pots round off some of the high end with the Chopper T allowing a tame, chunky tone left.

[omrala]

Hi all -
I found this thread searching for info on the Fast Track T (among other pickups), and since the thread appears to have been revived a few times, I'll go ahead and revive it again with my notes. I just bought a fast track T, and put it in an American fat tele (w/ neck humbucker) which a previous owner installed a B16 Bigsby on. The previous bridge pickup was a classic-series Duncan (I don't know the model), which had the problem of being way too bright in the B16 mounting socket as well as being really unbalanced with the neck humbucker - so after some research, in went a fast track T.

The result: a much more balanced guitar. ;) The Fast Track T does not sound completely like a single coil - that top-high-end sparkle isn't there - but it does twang reasonably well as advertised in this setup, and it handles gain nicely as well. It's also much less sensitive to the ringings from the strings behind the b16 bridge - they've gone from being very exaggerated with the previous pickup to being "just enough to know they're there" with the fast track. (I have the pickup wired straight-up in series mode.)

Thanks for the discussion, and hope this helps someone!