DiMarzio Virtual Hot PAF DP214 Humbucker

The Virtual Hot PAF is a cool pickup!  This one was brought to my attention years ago by one of my pals on the inside of the pickup business.  Yep, I’d never heard of this one before.  I was talking to him about going through a lot of the Van Halen-themed pickups, and he got right to business by pointing out this one.  Virtual Hot.  VH.  EVH?  Get it?  Yeah, he had to spell it out for me pretty much the same way.  Haha!

How about I get the disclaimers out of the way.  First, it’s not an “official” VH product.  It’s simply a hot-vintage humbucker that has some characteristics that fit well with a player in a SoCal band that released a debut album in 1978.  There is talk that the Super Distortion was on tap (ha!  a pun!) for a while.  And the official Ernie Ball Music Man EVH humbucker set.  But this Virtual Hot PAF?  No official connection I know of.  So… if I can get past avoiding cease and desist letters from Larry and EVH Gear, that’d be cool!

Secondly, it’s not “officially” available.  You used to be able to find the Virtual Hot PAF brand new in the box at several totally well-known and reputable outlets.  They are getting pretty rare as of late.  Most people that have them don’t want to give them up, so the used market is just as barren. This model ran from about 2004 to about 2008.

Airbucker Tech

DiMarzio’s Air technology is literally about putting air between the magnet and the conductive screws and/or poles. To give some pickups a more vintage character, some might tinker with the gauss strength of the magnet. The thing is that meddling with that magnetic charge can have inconsistent results. For more consistent result, DiMarzio uses that “air” as a way to alter the field of a fully charged magnet.

For that air gap, there are a few ways that have been of note. One is to essentially remove the keeper bar and place a few non-conductive (i.e., rubber, silicone, etc.) rings around the poles on the underside of the bobbin. Another method is to use poles that literally taper to a smaller diameter as they pass through the bottom of the bobbin. The more narrow diameter keeps the poles from making contact with the magnet. A model like the AT-1 does both.

Using Airbucker technology on an Alnico 5 magnet generates results a lot more in alignment with an Alnico 2 magnet.

Virtual Vintage Tech

What’s that? For the most part, they put ”dummy poles” between the normal pole pieces. The installation is in the underside of the bobbin, so they are not visible when looking at your typical operating humbucker. The purpose is to alter the inductance to ”tune” the coil(s) in a way not traditionally possible.

Installation

Moving forward, this one goes in the bridge position of that same guitar I’m use for all the VH-themed bridge pickups.  The Virtual Hot PAF is  wired to a p/p pot for series/parallel.  It’s just like every other DiMarzio, so it installed without a hitch and we were off and running.

Evaluation

First off, this is a great rock pickup.  Focused, articulate, raunchy, edgy, biting, and powerful.  The name of the pickup lays it right out there.  It’s a hot PAF-style pickup.  But it’s not just an over-wound PAF, which can lead to a voicing quite the contrary of what I just described.  What you get with this pickup is a pickup that’s designed to be hot.  Yeah, I know that might appear to be double-talk.  But talk to any good pickup winder and they’ll agree that over-winding does not always mean more output/volume.  Also, some guys like this pickup with a 250k pot.  I can see where some players would get down with that.  A 500k works fine for me.

On a dirty amp setting, the Virtual Hot PAF is right at home.  It sits well within the mix and it can easily jump right out for lead work.  Riffing is punchy, chords are open and lead work has edge.  All the harmonics I tried were quick to chime or ring or squeal with presence and sustain.  This would easily be a top pick for me to bring life to a set-neck 24.75″ scale singlecut guitar.

On a clean amp setting, this pickup is a spanky.  It is ready to break up in series mode, and going in to parallel mode delivers heaping helpings of snap.

Now, I know that there is a big school of thought on what DiMarzio production models can be put in place of the pickups that DiMarzio makes for the EBMM Axis/EVH. I can dig where the numbers are when comparing to a few pickup models.  On paper, the Virtual Hot PAF does not match up.  But using my ears, I do think the Virtual Hot PAF tone comes closer that many may realize.

Specs

And speaking of being close, if you ask DiMarzio about the Virtual PAF or the Virtual Hot PAF, they will direct you to the PAF 36th Anniversary Bridge DP223.  So how about we look at those specs:

That’s pretty darned similar.  I’ve played them both in the same guitar back to back.  They can be considered very synonymous.  Admittedly not a carbon copy, it’s the closest that is currently available from DiMarzio.

Demo

There are no official videos of the Virtual Hot PAF that I can find.  However, you can find some unofficial offerings online.

Conclusion

Trust me when I say that I have inquired about this pickup at the highest level of the company. I’ve also asked to buy more, to no avail. As it stands today, there is currently no future for this model. However, let’s continue to hope it makes it back on the menu again at some point.

If you can find one, this humbucker will be good for funk, garage, classic rock, heavy rock, fusion, blues, alternative, metal, blues rock, shred, and more. I have them in black and in cream, both with 4-conductor lead wire and short legs. No confirmation at this point if this model was available in other colors or configurations.

For reference, this DiMarzio Virtual Hot PAF DP214 humbucker evaluation was conducted with the following: Fractal Axe-Fx II XL+ featuring Celestion Impluse Responses and Fractal MFC-101 MIDI Foot Controller. ADA MP-1 Tube Pre-Amp loaded with Tube Amp Doctor ECC83 Premium Selected tubes, using the ADA MC-1 MIDI Controller. Fryette LX II Stereo Tube Power Amplifier. Physical cabs use are Marshall 1960B, Mojotone British, and Peavey 6505 cabs loaded with Celestion Classic Series Vintage 30s and Classic Series G12M Greenbacks.

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