DiMarzio Dominion Humbucker Set

Let’s talk about the Dominion humbucker set. Take a moment to get past the name and other associations that might prompt you to think it is something it’s not.

It might be easy to look at Lamb Of God and think this pickup is only for thrash and metal core. It is not.

Or perhaps you see that Mark has a prior affiliation with the Duncan 59 Model bridge and Jazz neck. So the Dominion must sound like those? They do not. At all. LOL!

Those same prejudices kept me away from the Dominion set longer than I might admit. HaHa. But after trying the bridge model as a standalone, the neck is a necessity.

As an interesting aside for fans of the DiMarzio Super 3. I wanted a Super 3 for a direct-mount application, but the dimensions of the big magnets in the Super 3 made it too tall. DiMarzio Tech Support did advise that the Dominion Bridge would be the closest thing in a ‘normal’ humbucker height.  Groovy!

Installation

For this testing, the Dominion set is going into the same guitar in play for the Titan, D-Activator, MegaDrive, and Illuminator evaluations.  A 2-hum super strat with a German Floyd Rose. The harness has Bourns 500k push-pull pots for series-parallel application, with a Switchcraft 1/4″ jack and a Switchcraft 12120X 3-way toggle. The tuning is standard E with 09-42 strings.

As an aside, the Dominion pickups appear to be regular sized ceramic magnets. So it’s not as tall as the Titan or D-Activator or others with the taller/bigger ceramic magnets. That can pose an issue for some players that like to direct-mount and are set up for the more traditional dimensions.

Dominion Bridge

The Dominion bridge is a healthy beast on a dirty amp setting.  The low end is big and punchy, while retaining control and articulation to keep things tight without getting too stiff.  You get highs that are big and present with edge to spare, so that you can get your squeals and bite without being an ice pick.  The mids are the winner here, with plenty to go around… providing a bit of a roar, so that open chords have a little more authority.  You can work yourself into a more aggressive cut to your rhythm playing with just a tweak of your picking style.

On a clean amp setting, the Dominion bridge can be a little strong, depending on your playing style.  Lower notes maintained composure, while the higher end could break up without much effort.  If you want things more polite, tweaking the amp or rolling back the guitar volume knob gets you there.

Dominion Neck

Where the Bridge was a bit strong for a clean amp setting, the Dominion Neck is very well suited for cleans in both series and parallel modes.  It has a voice that controls the low end. There is a nice dimension through the mids and highs that allow for depth in chords and precision in single note lines.  On a dirty amp settings, the Dominion neck reveals the same DiMarzio character that I find on many DiMarzio neck humbuckers. Lead solo work has depth and clarity with copious sustain. Big open chords stretch their legs without loosing control in the low end.

Going to the middle position and working with combinations of series and parallel modes. The full set reveals even more versatility to span classic rock to 80s rock to metal and of course modern rock.

Demo

It’s a heinous oversight and a downright crime that there is no official demo video from DiMarzio on this set. However, here is a demo of Mark:

Specs

Let’s take a peek at what’s under the hood of the Dominion humbuckers:

This set is a real winner that very much deserves consideration.  I maintain the suggestion that the Dominion should be looked at upon it’s own merit as a well-voiced and versatile set of humbuckers. And should not be limited in any way to Lamb Of God or Mark Morton fans only.

The Dominion set is going to be good for shred, progressive metal, thrash, 80s metal, death metal, classic rock, hard rock, djent, nu-metal, hardcore, tech metal, alternative rock, garage, grunge, fusion, and punk.

For reference, this DiMarzio Dominion humbucker set evaluation was conducted with a Fractal Axe-Fx II XL+ featuring Celestion Impluse Responses and Fractal MFC-101 MIDI Foot Controller.  In addition, real cabs in 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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