DiMarzio modeled their Area '58 after one of the most celebrated Strat pickups from 1958, with two major differences. The Area '58 has way less magnet pull, and virtually no hum. It's recommended for neck and middle, and can also be used in the bridge position.

A great pickup is clear and bright, but not thin-sounding. A great one makes the sound jump out of the amp when you pick hard and drop way down when you play softly, and the tone varies when the string is picked at different spots. DiMarzio designed the Area '58 to fit this profile exactly.

Tech Talk: The Area '58 has obvious similarities to the Virtual Vintage 2.1 it replaces, but there are several non-visible performance factors that have changed. Dynamic range and string definition are greatly increased, leading to improvements in both clean chord-playing and overdriven soloing. The '58 is very sensitive to small height adjustment differences: close to the strings produces a fatter, slightly compressed blues tone and further away yields crystal clean sounds. The final improvement is in noise reduction. All of the Virtual Vintage pickups have better hum cancellation than full-size humbuckers. The Area 58 and Area '61 are even quieter.