The Custom Custom (or CC) is my favorite bridge pickup. There, I said it. It’s beefier than a standard PAF style, yet not so huge in output that it tends to compress everything. This article will discuss the use and sound of the CC, as well as providing some soundclips solo and within a mix so you can hear it for yourself.

The CC started its life as an SH-5 Custom, which is the traditional Seymour Duncan ‘beefy PAF.’ It’s everything you like about vintage pickups but louder, ruder, and tighter. The Custom Custom was derived from the Custom by removing the ceramic magnet and replacing it with an Alnico II. Now normally to do magnet swaps we would have to partially disassemble the pickup. However, Seymour Duncan has done all of the work for us.

The Schecter Tempest Custom comes stock with a Custom Custom in the bridge.

With the SH-11 (and the tremolo-spaced TB-11 Trembucker) you get the SH-5’s beefier coil with a magnet that was used in the original PAF pickups. The Alnico II magnet in the CC will soften the bass, and add a healthy dose of mids. This is a great choice for really bright guitars (like my all maple and graphite Steinberger) as well as single-guitar bands. The mids take up a nice slice of the sonic spectrum, which makes this pickup ideal for bands that have the classic power trio setup: guitar/bass/drums.

I have my CC installed in my Brian Moore C55, which is what is used in these clips. This particular guitar is a double cutaway, and it has a chambered mahogany body with a maple cap, maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. It is plugged into a few vintage clean amps, as well as a modern high-gain amp. For the demos, I tried to go for sounds which showcase the sounds of this unique pickup.

 The Clips!
This clip is some semi-clean chords. In the middle of the clip, you hear the tone change. This is from splitting the pickup- the CC is wired as a 4-conductor pickup which allows splitting for a single coil sound.

Now, let’s play something semi-clean, but fast. This is the full pickup sound.

We now come to the fun stuff! Turning up the gain, here are some power chords:

Now single notes under a lot of gain:

Finally we get to a demo mix of sounds. All of the guitar sounds are the Custom Custom, with different amounts of gain. While the bass isn’t as tight-sounding as many more open pickups, the highs emphasize the pick attack while the strong mids help sustain of long notes. This pickup takes up a lot of space in a mix, which is why it is ideal for sparse instrumentation. I tried to showcase many different sounds in this clip, from long sustained notes, to clean chords, to faster single-note stuff. There are lots of loops and guitar synth in here too, because, well, I can’t help it.

To my ears, the Tone Chart’s bass/middle/treble specs for this pickup is 3/7/7, which I think is very accurate. It has most mids of any low-to-mid output pickup that Seymour Duncan makes which keeps it in the PAF realm. To get more mids, you have to go up to a much higher output pickup. The 14.4k DC Resistance is a little more than a traditional PAF too, so it drives the input of an amp harder, yet still allows me to use lots of dynamics with my fingers and volume control.

Normal or Trem-spaced?

The Custom Custom bridge pickup is available as a regular humbucker  & as a trembucker, and is 4-conductor for all of the switching options of a modern pickup. You can custom order it with many bobbin colors, with a cover, with a logo or without.

What kind of music would you play with a Custom Custom? What kind of guitar would you put it in?