DiMarzio D Sonic 7

The D Sonic 7 has firm footing in the 7-string guitar renaissance of the mid 2000s. Steve Vai’s vision for an extra string (low B) was as ahead of it’s time… as all things related to the fretboard wizard. When the rest of the guitar world catches up, you can bet that tone seekers want options. The D Sonic 7 and the X2N 7 both rolled up in 2006 to meet the demand.

Dual Resonance Tech

Dual Resonance is basically mis-matched coils. It’s common for several pickup companies to allow about a 5% variance. But Dual Resonance is an intentional mis-matching of the coils to produce a specific “tuning” of the pickup’s voice. According to the patent, it is pretty much about putting a similar number of turns on each coil. But with different wire gauges.

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.

NOTE: The D Sonic 6 and 7 string options both use the Dual Resonance and the Virtual Vintage Tech.

Installation

This humbucker is going into an Ibanez Universe 7-string. That’s a basswood body, 24-fret maple neck, 25-1/2″ scale rosewood board, and Edge 7 locking tremolo system. The guitar has a standard tuning of low B on the 7th, using 09-54 strings. The harness is original.

The Ibby Universe switching that I’ll be covering is as follows:

As you can see, there is an auto-split situation going on in between the bridge and middle position. For giggles, and to approximate a little bit of a Petrucci vibe, I’m putting the Air Norton 7 in the neck. The stock Blaze single coil remains in the middle.

Evaluation

Overall, the D Sonic 7 is a fairly rip-roaring and aggressively raucous affair. And now, before you get the wrong idea, it’s not as extreme or over-the-stop as the X2N for example. But the D Sonic 7 is definitely, and defiantly, more raw than the Crunch Lab 7.

The different tuning of each coil allows a much more open and clear character to the voice. Each note has a little more definition, be it on it’s own or in congress as a full chord. Harmonics are there for the taking and effortlessly jump up off the frets. The punch and the power and the crunch makes this an outstanding option for even the most extreme rock, prog, and metal.

With a fairly even balance across the frequencies, the D Sonic 7 is dialed in to cover a lot of ground with it’s versatility. Looking up at the switching selection, the default in-between takes the regular pole coil and pairs it with the center position Blaze single coil. Yes, it can serve up a little snap on an edgy amp setting. Yet it’s a clean amp channel that reveals this to be a delightful Goldilocks option.

What Goes Where?

At first glance, the appearance of the D Sonic 7 should be familiar to DiMarzio players. The one bobbin with poles and the other with the bar. We see this configuration on all versions of the Crunch Lab and on the 6-string MegaDrive. In all these instances, the orientation of the pickup can determine the results.

With the bar toward the bridge, you get more focus and edge. This is where you’re going to look if you use an extended or a drop tuning. For standard tuning, you might be enjoy things with the poles closer to the bridge. Definitely experiment to find the option that is working best for your goals.

If you do spin it around, be certain to experiment with splitting options. You may have a middle or a neck pickup to select some fun in-between character. Or you can just split to whatever coil you prefer, no matter of the position of the bar or the poles. Play around and have some fun with it.

Specs

Just for giggles, let’s compare the numbers of the 6 and the 7-string version of this bad boy:

Demo

John Petrucci was using the D Sonic 7 a few years prior to the release of the Crunch Lab 7. The Systematic Chaos album hits that timeframe.

You can see in those live clips that JP is using the D Sonic 7 with the solid bar closer to the neck for a heavier character.

Conclusion

The D Sonic 7 is going to be good for hard rock, shred, metal, grunge, progressive rock and metal, garage, thrash, classic rock, and punk. It is available with black bobbins and 4 zebra colors. As usual, pole piece color choice are nickel, gold, and black.

For reference, this DiMarzio D Sonic 7 humbucker pickup 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.

7 string 16Ω 59 Airbucker Alnico 2 Alnico 3 Alnico 4 Alnico 5 Alnico 8 Bare Knuckle BKP Boot Camp Brown Sound Celestion Ceramic Custom Shop DiMarzio Dual Resonance EVH Fishman Floyd Rose Fluence Gibson Humbucker Ibanez JB Jimmy Page John Petrucci Les Paul MJ Mojotone P90 PAF Pariah Pickup Satch Satriani Schaller Seymour Duncan Singlecoil Single Width Speaker Steve Vai Tech Tip Virtual Vintage