I rescued my DiMarzio AXIS neck pickup

I rescued my DiMarzio AXIS neck pickup

I never got along with the Axis neck pickup as I always felt it carried too much low end. I decided to experiment a bit with it and my results are pretty amazing…to me at least. I’ve always been fond of a real throaty neck pickup sound and I think this cheap mod nails it.

I first made sure the pickup was as low as it could be into the body. I then adjusted all pole pieces to sit a hair over 1mm above the bobbin. You can just adjust the outer E strings first and follow up with a straight edge until they’re all even. Making sure there’s no rocking while checking with your ruler.

Leaving the outer E strings alone, I adjusted the A, D, G, & B counterclockwise (UP) to follow the radius of the fretboard. The A & B about a half turn out and the D & G about a full turn out.

De-solder the red neck pickup lead from the selector switch. Add a .022uf cap in series with the pickup lead to the switch. I found the .022uf (203 code on the cap) to give the best sound for me. Almost strat like.

Give it a shot. I was about to drop some coin on some new pups, but this mod cost me about 15 cents and twenty minutes out of my day.

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Source: http://forums.ernieball.com