Active humbuckers have a distinctive sound: powerful, clean, open-sounding, with excellent harmonic overtones and very tight lows. This also fits the description of a great 7-string pickup, if the problems associated with active pickups – sterile sound and limited headroom – could be eliminated. The D Activator 7 models do just that. The D Activator 7 Bridge has the same loud yet clean sound as the best active humbuckers, and killer harmonics. The low B string is all about attack, not mud. It responds instantly to hard or light picking. In a word: it rocks. No batteries required.

Like the 6-string version, the bridge D Activator 7 has a very focused attack that hits the amp hard and makes it feel more powerful than it actually specs out to be. DiMarzio also wanted to avoid the limiting effect that can occur with active pickups when they are played hard. This pickup is passive with a lot of headroom, and it responds quickly and accurately to changes in pick attack. A hard pick attack doesn’t cause the signal to flatten out, and picking more softly or rolling the volume control down lets the sound clean up naturally. Like all passive pickups, D Activators require controls with a minimum value of 250Kohms. 500K is the standard all around value, and the 1Megohm tone control is best for long cable runs.

Specifications

• Recommended for: Bridge position
• Wiring: 4 Conductor
• Magnet: Ceramic
• Output mV: 460
• DC Resistance: 11.40 K
• Year of Introduction: 2007