Battle of the Yngwie Malmsteen Pickups - Di Marzio HS-3 vs Seymour Duncan YJM Fury 

Want to hear me, and some other people, playing some Yngwie? Check out this playlist: ru-vid.com/group/PLNaLwTdlpQNFMOAPGrLAGqirCvBsokngd

The Dimarzios sing. The Duncan’s scream. Both sound amazing but the Dimarzios sound legendary.

dimarzio sounds way more like normal strat pickups, it gave yngwie a unique sound using them with distortion. the duncans just sound more like regular humbuckers

Great video, you've helped me decide to go with the Dimarzios. The Duncans are too dark and not as Stratty. Plus the tones from Yngwie's classic albums (the tones everyone chase) were made with the Dimarzios 🤷🏼‍♂️

4:10 4:56 Best way to compare

I was friends with Yngwie's personal Luther, and actually lived in an apartment on the 2nd floor of the shop. Yngwie used to come by and hang out all the time. It was great. I've seen The Duck and all the main guitars disassembled all the time. I know well into the early 2000s, he still had the DiMarzio for sure. The story he told me, was that DiMarzio would not bend on the pickup profile Yngwie wanted. They basically said "this is perfect, don't mess with it", but Duncan gave Yngwie tons of different winds, materials, prototypes etc I til he found the one he liked, and then he left DiMarzio. Bjorn Englen (Yngwie's former bassist) was also my bassist and we used to talk about this all the time on tour. I personally like the HS-3. I had them on the neck of my 1st Fender. The Fury in the bridge would probably be better. I myself though, really like the Fender Texas Specials in my strat. I have also Vintage Noiseless that I like very much.

One thing a lot of Strat players don't do right, you should first set your amp's settings to make the bridge pickup sound good, then go from there. Don't expect it to be as thick as a humbucker, just tight yet solid lows and mids, and not too bright. Then raise the height of the high E side very close to the string so you get a strong note that sustains, then bring the low E side down until you can hear all the notes in a full chord clearly and the low strings sound tight and crisp. Then switch over to the neck pickup and do the same thing but go back and forth with the bridge so that they're balanced. When adjusting the neck pup itself, the low E side will wind up being set very low to get the boomyness out of the low strings so be careful not to go too far and drop it in. Once they're set, you can balance the middle pup in between. This is why a lot of strat players can't get the bridge pickup to sound good and always just go to the neck. It begins with the bridge pickup. And try to do this through your main amp. If you still find the bridge pup too bright, try wiring the neck tone pot to it. If you want to fatten it, install a base plate. There are a few different types out there.

There are many comparison clips between these two pickups on the net, but often it was almost impossible for me to hear tonal difference. What I hear in this clip is exactly tonal difference what I experienced with these two pickups. The Fury is not bad at all, but HS3 is truly YJM signature tone (especially early works), period.

I slightly prefer the Dimarzio recorded tones. However the Duncans feel so much better when playing in the room through an amp. With the Dimarzios, the very lower-than-vintage output requires you to pile on the gain or volume. The duncan's slightly higher output and more aggressive voicing is perfect for playing at bedroom volume levels. I would love to hear the split tones with a 5 way switch, with some clean reverb and compression and chorus for an 80s sound.

Yngwie's rushin ascending runs have the "boom" sound discussed here, also his wild vibratos. Hell yeah

I like the Duncan Bridge and Dimarzio neck.

Came for the pickups, stayed for the playing! Nice job man! A bunch of youtubers demo are tough to listen to cuz the playing is ,,,rough. But you are a pleasure to listen to! Thanks! I have the Dimarzios, was just wondering how it compares, thanks!

The Duncan's are higher output but the DiMarzio's sounded better. Just crank the amp a bit when you use the DiMarzio's and you'll be fine!

That was a perfect comparison And thank you! More would be appreciated! Again thank you !🔥

Think on this: All the greatest Yngwie albums were composed with the Hs DiMarzios. The legendary tone and magic! When he started to use Duncans, he got muddy and crappy sounding...

I went with HS3s, not such a big fan of Yngwies later work or sound. Great video 👍

Awesome playing and tones man!

Thank you for demoing clean aswell as dirty

Fun videos and GREAT playing 👏👏👏

This is a clean sound. With tons of reverb.. Because I like it.

11:03 that face is priceless

Just recieve my yjm guitar yesterday... My dream guitar.... Cant wait to jam with my friend

Great playing man!

My favorites are the DM HS3. I have them both the SD Fury in my YJM Strat and the DiMarzio in my Squier Strat. HS 4 neck, Wilkinson vintage middle and HS3 bridge. The HS3 produces in my personal taste my favorite perfect tune I want. I enjoy both brands!

Great video and timing as I'm still looking into what pickups to set into one of my strats. I'd say on clean I couldn't really tell them apart. But when overdrive came into play I fell into the DiMarzio's. Felt they kept a more tight ringing at the lowend 🤔. Probably will need more comparisons though as my strat has a plastic nut which does affect. Great job on this one🖒, quite helpful.

The HS-3's sound more like real single coils, very similar sounding to my 1988 MIJ Fender Contemporary Standard Strat with Kahler trem. Great demonstration, cheers!

I just bought a used American Professional with YJM pickups in it, so I guess I put my money where my mouth is. I've been looking for the right Strat for a long time and finally found it! Thanks for the comparison, I found it helpful.

Oh nice👍 I ❤️ Seymour Duncan - STK-S10PGD YJM FURY!

thnxs for this video, i do like both of them a lot, but just for personal preferences i would go for the HS3.

great video. love hs3 as you say both sets are good. got 1996 YJM strat and replaced original pickguard with FURY pickguard from seymour duncan. never regreted it.

Listened to this again after a year and even more strongly agree with the Di Marzio being the more true to malmsteen tone. Bearing in mind i prefer his tone up until mid 90's then (still di marzio i know) when he just seemed to add extra OD and ridiculous amount of delay. I think,to me, it is like the difference between a PAF and a higher output humbucker, PAF needs the extra boost but the tone is inherently "sweeter" and that is the difference here? They have that "buttery" neck tone which the Fury's seem to have lost. The Duncans just sound like excellent rock pickups without the the warmth to my ears! I have tried both by the way. and the Di Marzio with the right boost and amp,is that stupendous tone we all loved (back in the day hehe!)

Dimarzio has a patent for making pickups without strong magnets so they have less string pull which I think is important.

love wat yr doing here-very very sweet depth sound and clean-and highly pure-i have oceans 11 pedal and big muff got them as gift-I love them

love your videos!

First time I hear Blackmore in your demos! Please we need more Blackmore! :D

Liked the video for expressing the best reason to use lots of reverb.

I had hs3 in my strat. Sounds great for blues as well. Those pickups sing.

Those fury's are killer pickups, love em.

Your are a very good player Elmo which also makes choosing very difficult. Thank you for making this video:)

The Duncan's to me sound less sweeter but clearer to my ears...they come across as slightly brighter...Either way this was an excellent demo and much appreciated ! Finally i've heard these pickups properly side by side.

Thanks for the video, will help make a more informed purchase.

Yeah.I have the Duncan furys in my 94 strat.great p/ups.good review.thanks...

thanks for the informative video. helped me make my choice

Here's an interesting tale of pickup serendipity: I'm just putting together a new Strat, ebony fretboard, 3.25 lbs alder body, super-thin nitro cellulose lacquer, but wasn't sure what PU's to put in it... Wanted something noiseless, and I tend to prefer a humbucker in the the bridge position, so I looked at some Rails for that, but they're really hot, so finally had a friend rewind a Hot Rails for me, and replace the magnet, giving it a much more vintage PAF vibe... But then I was picking through an old box of junk I brought with when I moved from Germany to the US, and to my amazement, I found the first two pickups I ever bought, somewhere around 1984 as a kid of 16, to put into the neck and bridge of a gutted old Ibanez Roadstar II that was my first 'real' guitar... And those two pickups: Dimarzio HS-3's..! I restored the old Roadstar to original in the early 90's, found a complete original Ibanez pick guard for it, and gave it to my nephew. I threw the old Dimarzios in a box, where along with THREE different original Sony Walkman cassette players, and a bunch of Van Halen, Scorpions, Ozzy, AC/DC, and Iron Maiden cassettes, they eventually found there way from lower Saxony to the American Southwest. And now the HS-3's live in the new Strat, where they sound FREAKIN' AMAZING, and are the perfect match for the under-wound Rails pickup in the bridge. I play with .10 - .52 D'addarios (Light Top/Heavy Bottom set), and those pickups just wail and growl like crazy. I'd totally forgotten about them for almost 30 years, and after that long sleep, and traveling halfway around the planet, they've found a home in a guitar I imagine I'll be playing for a long time to come. I know this story doesn't have anything to do with the pickup comparison of this video, and I apologize, but I thought y'all might appreciate the way it happened. And, it goes without saying, to my ears HS-3's all the way! Though I have owned many Seymour Duncans, which are overall as good as Dimarzios, as well as Lindy Fralins, T.V. Jones, Burns, Armstrongs, DeArmond, and all the factory PU's too... So many good pickups out there, they all have a voice and a place, I make it a mission to find the ones that fit the guitar perfectly, regardless of brand & model. It's like my own personal match-making service! Anyway, cheers, and thanks for the great comparison video!

Thanks a lot for this video! I was looking for this exact content (i'm about to change pickups on my strat) i really like the Malmsteen's sound... I was in a very hard decision between the YJM or the Dimarzio Hs3. So last Week i ordered the Dimarzio Hs3 they sound really amazing in this review...

Usually I prefer Duncan over DiMarzio but this time I have to say DiMarzio HS3 are a lot better. At 7:00 on the rhythmic parts, the notes are too muddy while on the HS3 you can hear every single string. Being a huge fan of the early Malmsteen albums and "Trilogy" being my favourite, HS3s is what I would choose!

Great playing, man - I definitely preferred the DiMarzios

Nice vid. Been wondering about the difference lately in changing out my original YJM pickups for the Fury set.

Great video!

You had my like at the Spinal Tap quote

DiMarzio is THE Yngwie sound!

Awesome!!! I like the YJM duncans

very good video man. both are great, killer pick ups. looking for differences between these two is like pixel peeping and 10000% magnification in photography.

I have both in two different Strats. I prefer DiMarzio, but my clean boost is always on, even when I need a pure clean sound. I prefer this way rather than using hotter pickups. Texas Specials are my favorite single coil pickups, but they can be noisy in some live situations. With the DiMarzio HS-3 and a clean boost I can get close to the Texas Special, and knowing it is what Malmsteen was using in his first albums just makes me feel better, haha...

I know this video is old as hell but I was able to get a original 1988 YJM signature strat and it came with the dimarzio, I did not really like the dimarzio pickups that much and then I saw this video and it really helped me, I bought the YJM seymour duncan and put those on the guitar and it freaking screams, I do prefer the YJM, it was a nice upgrade. Thanks

Hs-3 All the way

Very nice, thank you

Great comparison, and you play in a great way too, in my case I prefer pickups with less gain since that helps in the clarity of the clean sounds (correct me if I'm wrong) which is what I occupy the most, I like the Fender sound in general, but what Ry Cooder and Manuel Galban did in Buena Vista Social Club or Erick Johnson is like what I try to emulate, so I prefer guitar number 1. Greetings from Chile!

Nice playing!

Thanks for the comparison. I think both sets have their pros and cons. I don’t think anyone would be disappointed with either

I put HS3`s in one of my strats to test them on how they sounded doing Hendrix type blues rock. I later put them in more of my strats because they are higher output which pushes the front of the amp harder, which is great for smaller venues, where you can`t blow the roof off the joint with volume, plus they clean up really good when you roll back the volume, AND they have more note definition when you play faster stuff with distortion. I think they`re fantastic.

cool vid 🤘🏻

Should’ve used the Marshall for the dirty tones at least once :) think I prefer the maple necked geetar. Dang dude, I didn’t know you were this good 3 years ago, lol. Far out man!

Had to go back and watch this video again. I have a modded satin Strat with YJM-Fury's in them and they are great. I have a custom made maple/maple SuperStrat with a pair of guitarheads Mini Rails (which I guess are comparable to SD Hot Rails) and they are high output and don't really sound Straty. So I'm thinking about replacing them with either the HS-3 pickups or YJM-Fury pickups. I overdrive cleanish low watt tube amps anyway with pedals and love a more versatile "noiseless" pickup tone for all styles.

I really like the Dimarzio’s, the furypickups sound close to the BL L-250 which I been using for some time, it’s whatMalmsteen was using before the Dimarzio

Great Job thx

Best malmsteen tone comparison in youtube👍👌 Dimarzio is really cool and warmer tone. S duncan has hotter but harsher and less clarity tone.

I, just bought the Duncan's. Thanks for the input. Although I didn't realize that they are hotter than the Dimarzio's. Either way, they both sound great :)

Nice playing too!

It all depends on what amp you use. And style. I use the yjm furys (malmsteen strat) for country as well, and they work perfectly for every situation :-)

Hola Elmo. Muy buena la comparación. Personalmente prefiero los DiMarzio, son menos filosos. Y te agradeszco todos tu videos , son muy sinceros ; entretenidos y útiles. Un abrazo desde Argentina ¡

I like the Dimarzio better. That's a little scary since the other is called the YJM. But now at least I know which one I like better thanks to your good video work! :D

To my ears the Dimarzios have better dynamics , plenty of bites , pronounced high-end. That is the Yngwie sound that I like. The Duncans have WAY too much mids , and are too hot ; might be difficult to keed control with and overdrive in front of a cranked amp. My opinion :Dimarzio HS-3 all the way🤷‍♂️

Thanks for not just playing malmsteen licks some ppl wanna know how they sound in other types of music

I bought the vintage HS3’s with no screw for my 2 70’s Strats for the bridge position, And I installed the same era HS2’s in the neck, and it sings beautifully through my ‘71 Marshall’s.. You do have to crank the overdrive, but the tone is legendary.. at least in the room. And I end up keeping the tone on the clean side

The SD's would suit my needs in a live setting, & i've had a little addiction for the HS3 neck pickup for while, i'd still use that when recording.

Enjoying your channel, subbed 👍🏻 please do a before and after vid in your rosewood strat, dimarzio then the Seymours so we can hear a true comparison 🙏 those fingerboards can make alot of difference to the tone.

For a truly fair comparison the guitars need to be identical. Better yet, they should be done on the same guitar and just swap out the whole pickguard. There is a HUGE difference between even just the maple vs the rosewood, not to mention body/neck density/weight and hardware, age etc

Hey! I am the ORIGINAL Ynvei J Malmsteen, of course I have the ORIGINAL 2007 Di Marzio¨s model, and I´m still astonished how beautiful sounds, and now I´ve gotten so used to the scalloped fretboard (I´ve had it for over 2 years) that now it is hard for me to play on a regular Guitar.

Nice bit of Vai at the end. :) When are you going to post a tutorial on those runs of yours? Just been looking at an Yngwie Strat being advertised on Rerverb for under £1300, with what the seller said were DiMarzio Fury pickups. Yes, Dimarzio Fury Pups, not a typo by me.

Compare both guitars with the Marshall, switch the DOD 250 off and on to hear the difference in just Marshall and adding 250, and nothing else.

Di Marzio wins no contest. That´s the Yngwie tone.

I'm a long time lover of Dimarzio HS. The Seymour Duncan have both better bass and are darker, especially the neck pup. That said, if you're looking for something more all around, go for the HS. The YJMs are more spooky sounding Phrygian and harmonic minor realms, where you can get the brighter and crisper early Yngwie sounds from the HS. They're both great, but have distinct differences.

I'd say they're fairly close, and both sound excellent. Maybe the DiMarzio's might be a little more flexible, as the Duncan's have a bit more output. The DiMarzio's sound a bit more "pure" when you're playing them with a clean tone. However, I'm wondering if the rosewood fingerboard gives the Strat with DiMarzio's a slightly warmer and more focused tone. The Duncan's have a killer tone when you're pushing the amp into overdrive. It's hard to choose between the two for me, I'd probably leave the DiMarzio's in, just so you have a bit of variety. Thanks for posting this!

Came here just looking for a bit of perspective on what the HS-3 is all about, not from a Yngwie fan point of view. I have a Strat I bought 2nd hand about 15 years ago, and some... things have been done to it. I just took it apart to find out what's what. It started life as a 2000 Lone Star or 2000/2001 American Strat Texas Special. Originally the neck pickup was a Fender Texas Special, but now it's a DiMarzio HS-3, and I have to say, it's a pretty good sounding pickup in that place. Not quite as sold on the SD Alnico II Pro staggered in the mid spot. Now, as to why all of this was put on a vintage 11 hole pickguard that doesn't fit the modern 11 hole body, I have no idea. the whole upgrade looks to be a bit of a butcher job. But hey, it was $300 Canadian, so not at all a loss. in any case, thanks for the perspective, and your quite exquisite playing! Salut!

Wow man that was great playing, oh and the Duncan are best

I prefer the Dimarzio Hs-3s .for my like it's more well rounded and more melodic sounding to me. I want a old Malmsteen strat from early to mid 80's with Red paint & rosewood fretboard.

Thank You for this interesting Video, to be honest, to my ears the DiMarzios Sound "better", but I would be keen on a further comparison, when the seymour duncan set is mounted in the guitar with the rosewood fretboard, which You mentioned as the "better" guitar. It would be great, if you would do another Video with the same Setups in Your Axe FX and similar style in playin. kind regards Markus

didin change pickups on my standard strat and how long should i wait to do that?-duno-had it since 2013 &these both sound really heady-but music distracts me -dont chk out quality in jewelry stores-just get dazzled same here--i play vidway more-then ill actually get hear diff- also no one told me humbuckers cut out noise-here 4 thrill-also the show more i put on my cellphon-thanks/shared ohman the comp draws lines thru my comments

I LOVE YNGWIE FOREVER!

For my ears Duncans sound like humbucker with some sort of single coil emulation like in some digital multieffect processor. I prefer DiMarzio. Very good video!

His best tone, IMHO, was with Alcatrazz- DiMarzio FS-2. I believe John Norum's Paoletti guitars have them.

Elmo, do you like the wider spacing of the vintage trem or the narrower of a Floyd or Am Standard Strat. I was thinking of changing the vintage spaced trem on my YJM Stratocaster to a narrower spaced. Callaham makes a trem with vintage spacing for the 6 holes but the saddles are narrower. For pedaling riffs and string changes, things are closer together. Plus, the top E string doesn't want to pull off as easily. Thank you for all of the feedback you give. It is much appreciated.

I like the clean and more articulate sound of Dimarzios but then again with that Yngwie sound Duncans had more to give in terms of output and ''meat''. Hard choice but I've pretty much always used Dimarzios and especially Virtual Vintages, used to use HS-3 and now it's just lying around, so yes I go with Dimarzio but finally Duncan pickups that sound very very appealing! And very tasty and nice playing!

Amazing comparison! Furys are definately beefier..Just wanted to ask something...I have a 2017 yjm strat just like yours with the maple.It has a weird and very slight fret buzz on the low strings especially the low e.Again its very slightly noticable but its still there.Does your guitar have the same issue? Or i am just hitting the strings really hard?

Excellent video as always Elmo... I particularly enjoyed your YM overdrive reviews.... What can you tell us in terms of noise comparison? Is your first guitar better because of the glued fretboard?

I think the fury pickup is a lot thinner sounding than the DiMarzio pickup but I do like that chunkiness in the fury but Yngwie Malmsteen likes that high treble he got that from Ritchie Blackmore

I think the Fury set sounds good here. In other comparison videos I prefer the Dimarzio. I wonder if (a) the rosewood neck is softening the brightness and (b) since they're not as hot and the amp is on the exact same setting, that would make the Dimarzios sound less biting? I'm guessing these sets are close enough that on the exact same guitar, only minimal amp tweaks would allow either set to sound great.

HS-3 Dimarzio !!

It's a great demonstration. Not strictly fair, because you used different guitars with different fretboards, but stil the playing is great and personal opinion is valuable. Thanks!