I installed two of these in my alder body Stratocaster in the neck and middle position with a Super Distortion S in the bridge. They matched nicely and the middle pickup was perfect for clean and high gain. I found that in the neck position the Chopper sounded fantastic clean, very good dirty but somewhat muddy with high gain, overdrive or distortion. So, as with any pickup, it would depend on your style of play. If you use the overdrive or high gain alot, you may want to consider another pickup in the neck. I installed a Heavy Blues 2 pickup in the neck and it was perfect for my style and sound and it also matched well with the Super Distortion S.

I've recently dropped this into the bridge position on my 50th anniversary Strat, and I must say, I'm impressed with the tone. It has so much clarity while still keeping heavy bottom end tones. I plugged my axe in and played a sweep and it sounded ten times better than with my stock pickup. You could clearly hear every note. Harmonics scream and stand out as I've always wanted. This pickup is a great buy, though it wasn't as high of output as I expected. I plan on moving this to the middle position and getting a Fast Track 2 for the bridge and a YJM for the neck position.

I had a custom made loaded pickguard made (by Aamps Guitar Store) with 2 Choppers (neck/middle) and 1 Super Distortion S (bridge) and now I have a serious problem......I don't want to play my other strats anymore! The Chopper sounds great for blues or rock. Fantastic tone in any set up. Don't hesitate, go Dimarzio today!

I replaced the Lace Sensor Gold pickup I had in the neck position of my HSS MIM Strat with this, and was actually surprised by how good it sounds. With distortion/overdrive it can be nice and brutal in the neck position, but run clean into an amp with decent headroom it does really nice clean tones too. The tone is actually not far off from the Lace Sensor, just hotter and with a "fuller" humbucking sound, though maybe not quite as thick-sounding as a full-size 'bucker would have been. It still sounds like a Strat, just a "Hot" one. I installed a coil split via a push-pull tone control pot, and when split I swear it sounds just the same as the original Lace Sensor! I consider that a good thing - it means that you can get both a nice "vintage" strat tone and a brutal metal sound with the same pickup - like having your cake and eating it too.

Unsplit, the bass in the neck position can be a bit "flabby" when distorted and run through a cheap amp/speakers; I had that problem when run though my Champ 600 reissue, but after replacing the crappy Chinese speaker (known to get flabby when driven) with a nice Ted Weber it sounds nice and clear.

My Strat's other pickups are a DiMarzio Super Distortion in the bridge position and a Pro Track in the middle; the Chopper balances them out nicely.

This pickup is good but for second guitar. I like it alot when power chords but when I go into a solo the High E string does not have much sustain. If you want a shredding guitar I recommend SD Hot Rail they have much more sustain than this one. Overall I recommend this from Melow to Classic Rock guitarist.