The TIME CAPSULE series of pickups is what Dean currently uses in their original TC series guitars. These pickups capture the biting tones of the vintage Dean instuments produced from 1977 to 1986 with very strong lows and mids. What to expect: Hot output. Thick mids. Flat lows. Great in bridge & neck. Dean Dmt Design Humbucker Pickups Review - butlerfasr Dean DMT-design humbucker pickups and the guitar's string-through-the-body design produce outstanding sustain. The dual volume, single tone, and 3-way switch is the control configuration that Dave prefers. Paul from Guitar World looks at the USA Dean DMT DimeTime Pickup. The Dean DimeTime is a collaboration between Grady Champion, who is Dime's long-time guitar.
Michael Amott knows a thing or two about tone. Whether it’s vintage death metal with Carcass, hard rock with Spiritual Beggars or his main job in Arch Enemy, Amott has the ears, hands and sense of sonic taste to craft the perfect sound for whatever musical situation he finds himself in. After flings with guitars like the Ibanez RG550 and his former ESP signature model the Ninja, Amott is now a Dean endorser, with his own line of signature guitars. And central to the tone of this imposing axe is the DMT Tyrant, Amott’s signature humbucker from Dean’s pickup division, Dean Magnetic Technologies. Amott was kind enough to arrange for a Tyrant humbucker to be sent out for review after I interviewed him recently.
On first glance the Tyrant looks a lot like a Seymour Duncan Invader due to those large nickel hex pole pieces. It doesn’t spec out the same though: the Invader draws its power from three ceramic magnets, overwound coils and twelve black oxide cap screws and it has a DC resistance of 16.8, while the Tyrant uses an Alnico V magnet and has a DC resistance of 16.2K. The Tyrant is also different to the Seymour Duncan JB, the humbucker used in his old ESP signature, which has a DC resistance of 16.8K, although the JB also uses an Alnico V magnet. But there’s a lot more that goes into a pickup’s sound than just magnet type and DC resistance.
I installed the Tyrant into my 1987 Ibanez RG550 for testing. Amott describes the Tyrant’s tone as being similar to his previous pickup but with higher output and a scoop in the mids. That’s certainly a good starting point to describe the sound, but it has enough personality to stand on its own two lugs (gettit?) too. The Tyrant seems to be two different pickups in one: a high-gain one and a more traditionally-voiced one. Crank it up via a heavily saturated metal rhythm tone and it has enough of an upper midrange push to force itself to be heard above the fuzz of distortion, and a tight enough low end to not smear all your ‘chugga chugga’ low-string riffs. The midrange dip doesn’t remove too much thickness from the body of the note, instead subtly thinning it out, giving the impression of a little ‘air’ around the notes. There are some rather blazing harmonic overtones jumping out when you kick into lead mode too, and it tracks very well for fast playing.
Dean Dmt Design Humbucker Pickups Review - butlerfasr Dean DMT-design humbucker pickups and the guitar's string-through-the-body design produce outstanding sustain. The dual volume, single tone, and 3-way switch is the control configuration that Dave prefers.
Use more of a traditional metal amp setting and the Tyrant seems like a different pickup entirely. The natural compression it exhibits in high-gain mode is lifted and it instead becomes quite a dynamic pickup. The mids seem more apparent and the highs seem a little drier – and this is all with all other amp settings unchanged aside from the gain on my Marshall DSL50. It’s here that you really begin to hear how the Tyrant fits in with the Spiritual Beggars side of Amott’s musical personality. It’s kind of like a modern take on the classic NWOBHM-style rhythm tone.
The clean sounds are good too but you probably won’t use them too much if you’re interested in a pickup that looks as mean as this! With this much output it’s hard to get a completely clean sound out of the Tyrant unless you do some serious amp tweaking. But there’s a lot to like if you’re into slightly grittier, grainier clean tone, or if you use an ultra-clean solid state amp like the Roland JC120 which would really keep the Tyrant on a leash.
“It works very nicely for me,” Amott said of the DMT Tyrant. “It’s what’s on the last couple of Arch Enemy albums. That’s what you hear on Khaos Legions: that guitar, that pickup, everything, which is very cool. I’m very happy that I can use my signature equipment in the studio! [Laughs] It’s good stuff. When you’re in the studio, usually the engineer will tell you, “I know you want to use this guitar, but let’s try another one. Okay, I like this one a lot more, play this,” and you end up playing a guitar that you don’t really like playing that much but that sounds better. And that didn’t happen this time around so I’m very, very pleased with that. No problem taking pictures and video in the studio! [Laughs] I can actually represent Dean guitars, so that’s nice. And I can really fly on that guitar. It’s the guitar that I’m most comfortable playing, so it’s just nice that I can play that on the album.” Hk 808 bluetooth usb adapter driver.
The Tyrant isn’t just a JB in different clothing or anything like that: if you want a JB, get a JB. What the Tyrant offers in comparison is something a little more specifically dialled in for metal styles, and something which will get Amott fans a little closer to the monster tones on Khaos Legions.
Wow! The Mountain Of Tone humbucker from Dean’s DMT line of pickup is incredible. Let’s first consider the man it’s made for: Leslie West.
There is no denying that Leslie is most commonly known for 1970’s Mississippi Queen. Fun footnote: Leslie also played on covers of the song for Sam Kinison in 1990 and Ozzy Osbourne in 2005. The big provocative riff that hits you in the chest while the sweetly rude solo licks at your ears.
The Mountain Of Tone humbucker has it’s work cut out for it. Of course, that makes me interested. LOL! The people at Dean have always been a pleasure to deal with, so I’m glad to have the opportunity the check out this pickup. A Dean pickup shows up in the packaging you’d expect from a boutique product. Dean also labels the baseplate with the name of the pickup in plain language. And last but not least, the hardware. Nicely substantial springs that keep things firmly in place while being an manageable length for ease of installation. Or am I the only one that chases those long skinny springs across the room? HaHa! Also, the screws are Phillips head, which I find much easier and faster to work with.
And the tone! Sheesh! The Mountain Of Tone lives up to it’s name. Big and full and rich and saturated while being articulate and snarling. This humbucker has more juice than a NFL training camp locker room.
On a dirty amp tone, the Mountain Of Tone is in the comfort zone. Riffs are hard-hitting with explosive authority. Big open chords fill the room with character. And the harmonics. Holy moly, Batman. This pickup is one of the most responsive to harmonics that I’ve laid ears on. It doesn’t meet a squeal that it doesn’t like. LOL!
Going to a clean amp tone, I’m totally expecting overbearing breakup so commonly found with humbuckers in the 16k range. Not so with the Mountain Of Tone. In series wiring, there is a totally workable voicing that makes clean options very versatile. Even more so in split and parallel wiring options, where cleans are snappy and super chimey.
Here’s an official sample of the Mountain Of Tone in action:
Cheap Humbucker Pickups
Ready for some specs?
Series – 17.279 K
Inductance – 7.732 H
Split N – 8.693 K
Split S – 8.608 K
Parallel – 4.327 K
Magnet – Alnico 5
The Mountain Of Tone comes in single and four conductor wiring options. Cover options include satin nickel, gold, and uncovered black or zebra. If you’ve been kicking the can down the road on this one, it’s time to get busy. I continue to be impressed by Dean’s DMT pickups.
Dean Dmt Design Humbucker Pickups Reviews
For reference, this Dean DMT Leslie West Mountain Of Tone pickup evaluation was conducted with a Fractal Axe-Fx II XL+ featuring Celestion Impluse Responses and Fractal MFC-101 MIDI Foot Controller. Real cabs used were Marshall 1960B cabs loaded with Celestion G12-65s, Vintage 30s and G12M Greenbacks.
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