Area Hot T users

I had the one in the middle, the 615. I've tried a lot of noiseless over the years and every single time i find them to be much to big a loss of tone to use. The Area T was no exception other then it may have been the worse of all i have tried over the years as noiseless pickups go. I couldn't rip it out fast enough. If you want more output to compete with the neck i'd look for a a higher wind traditional single coil with A5 like a Zhangbucker paul bunyan or such. I've always been a fan of dimarzio in general but that thing was ice pick city with all high mids and little top end past that. Why anyone likes those is beyond me but this one man's opinion is look elsewhere for a bridge pickup.
Oh....and it was not noiseless, it was maybe 30% less noise than a regular single coil, and i looked into that only to find a email response from dimarzio themselves to a user who had emailed them about the noise. They told him (paraphrasing) the way it's designed is to reduce noise but not be completely noiseless.

 

While I don't hate the Area Hot T, I do agree with @fender4life that it is too bright and icy for my taste. Sadly it is not like the former Virtual Vintage Hot T that is arguably the best bridge pup I've ever had, noiseless or not.

I just put in a Super Distortion T to replace the Area Hot T, and couldn't be happier. While it is definitely a "humbucker" sound, it is not the fire breathing monster they lead you to believe. I have the PAF Classic in the neck (replaced by the Air Classic) and they balance and compliment each other perfectly. But I'm not going for classic twang at all, just a balanced fat tone that does jazz to rock.

As for splitting and wiring, can't help as I keep it simple. So in a way my post is pointless, but figured I'd chime in given what had already been said. Good luck OP!

 

My experience is a bit different than the last two posts. I put the Area Hot T in the bridge of my 'thinline' Esquire build and couldn't be happier. I wired it with the modified 'Eldred mod' wiring (.0033 cap in the first switch position) and LOVE the sound. I never use the Esquires' volume only (no tone cap) position and find the center switch position (full tone control) to have all the twang I will ever need. But move the switch to that 'cocked wah' (.0033 cap) position and the gates of Rock and Roll Heaven swing wide open! Absolutely glorious! I would suggest putting in a either a 4 or 5 way switch so that you can have that option as well. Almost forgot to mention that the pickup is really quiet (no hum) even though the guitar is not shielded. Can't say enough about how impressed I am with that pickup/wiring combo.

 

I used a Hot T for an Esquire build and had similarly great results....but everyone has their own tastes. In my Strat I am running an Injector set, which is much hotter, and yet I still think it sounds very Stratty. But others would probably totally hate it. It uses Injectors in neck and bridge and Area 67 in the middle. If you listen to this YouTube review around 1:30 you can hear that the clean tones do have Strat characteristics but serious pursuers of vintage tone might find it too compromised. The trade off is you get much better tones as you crank up the gain and go for more blues rock to classic rock to hard rock tones. I think the same goes for the Area T pickups of various varieties-- you are giving up a little bit in terms of pure, vintage, cleans, but you are hopefully gaining better sounds as you crank up the gain. Of course, the other way to skin that cat is to use true vintage pickups and then just use a boost pedal of one kind or another to compensate when you want to use more gain.

 

I would run a stock 3 way with 250k pots. These are supposed to be drop in replacements for original pickups and are voiced accordingly.

 

I ran mine with 250k pots. If you find it too dark with an .047 tone cap, just go to an .022 cap for a bit more brightness. That was an easy fix that worked great for me.

 

I'd do it the way you intended with 500k pots & a resistor. I've never heard a HB sound healthy with a 250k pot.

Changing cap values on the pot only changes the sweep behavior, not the pickups tone, correct?

 

Whoops, didn't realize one pickup was a HB.

 

If it was for me, I'd disconnect tone on the HB altogether, and just have tone on the bridge pickup, since I always run the HB neck tone wide open anyway. YMMV.

 

Just mod the tone pot to a no load and get the same benefit with both pickups.

 

Humbuckers work best with 250 - 330K pots in my experience. Use both for volume and tone. 500Ks for single coils.

 

This was what I've done for years, though just recently I've gone back to stock config (w/ treble bleed) now that I have the Super Distortion T in the bridge, which doesn't need the tone rolled down to get the sound I want. I'd rather have a bridge pickup that doesn't need to be choked down with the tone knob, although the flip side to that is perhaps less versatility from the bridge, though that is all relative...

The Virtual Vintage Hot T had a nice mids-muscular tone with just enough brightness, so it didn't require drastic tone knob moves to go from twang to fat. The Area Hot T is much brighter, and I was having to keep the tone knob considerably rolled back just for a starting point, and rolling it way back for fatter 'bucker tones just choked it too much, losing tone and volume at that point. I play with a pretty warm sound to begin with, so the Area was just too bright a pup for me.

 

Search "modding no load pot". There's a great how to step by step tutorial.

You can buy one or mod your existing pot.

The mod takes the pot out of the circuit when dimed. Pot comes back in when rolled down.

There's no downside to this mod.

 

I hear you man! I actually have 250K pots, though I've thought about going to 500K. I'm still dialing things in, as I just installed this combo of pickups recently. I previously had a Eric Johnson neck bucker and the Area Hot T for the past year or so, definitely don't want 500K with that pair! But I've been wanting warmer, fatter tones, so I put in my old PAF Classic and took a chance on the Super D bridge. At first I was afraid it was a bit muddy in the neck and was thinking I needed 500K, but now that I'm dialed in a little better I'm not so sure.....

This post makes me seem like quite the Dimarzio guy haha