Resulting from a very particular request from Eric Johnson, DiMarzio has designed a pickup that's made to sound like an old Gretsch Country Gentlemen guitar, offering a pickup best used as replacements for standard, full-size humbuckers without sacrificing on the complexity. The sound is bright and vibrant, maintain a great and consistent presence without ever sounding too thin. It would be easy to mistake this for a Stratocaster pickup, although this humbucker is its own beast, sounding as equally brilliant with heavy distortion as it does on the lower ends, avoiding any trace of muddiness. Response is also a defining trait for the EJ Custom, boasting much more treble response than more vintage style humbuckers, comparable to that of typical single-coils but with a much more rounded texture. Used in the bridge position, this humbucker is especially valuable for chords and finger-picking, even boasting exceptional definition for soloing even when being pushed into extreme distortion.