DIMARZIO SUPER DISTORTION HUMBUCKING PICKUP

THE REPLACEMENT PICKUP is so commonplace these days that most guitarists have swapped pickups on at least one of their electric guitars to improve its sound

- CHRIS GILL

However, for about the first two decades of the electric solid body guitar’s existence, very few players ever thought of changing their pickups, and the few who did found it wasn’t a very easy task.

That all changed when Larry DiMarzio created the market for replacement pickups by developing and intelligently marketing the Super Distortion humbucker in the early Seventies.

DiMarzio made the Super Distortion to provide an improved alternative to the stock pickups manufactured during the late Sixties and early Seventies when companies like Gibson, Fender and Gretsch were owned by big corporations (Norlin, CBS and Baldwin, respectively) that cared more about cutting costs than satisfying players’ needs. Guitarists were also seeking ways to increase the distortion, crunch and sustain of their rigs, especially without needing to turn their amps up to ear-splitting levels or use fuzz pedals.