What's the Best Method for a Newbie to Pick a Pickup?

[Scott Olson]

As the VP of SD I wouldn't direct ANY new customers to the forum...this place should be an embarrassment to Seymour Duncan the company and any one associated with it.

So...I vote Tone Wizard!

Uh oh, and we just ran a full-page ad in Premier Guitar that tells people to come to the forum for help.

[jhale667]

Oddly, I got a question the day that article was published about the TW not working, but it worked for me when I tried it...interesting to see someone here mentioning having an issue with it too.

I think the TW is a great springboard to get a ballpark idea of what pickup might suit your particular guitar, and once you've got the general idea - as I pointed out - there's quite a few people here at any given time willing to offer suggestions.

I'll be interested to see a re-vamped version of the TW!

And thanks for re-posting that btw, Evan!

[That90'sGuy]

It's not a bad idea, but there aren't many options to begin with and some of the recommendations are just plain terrible. For example, you've got Les Pauls listed, but I don't see anything about guitars like hollowbodies or semi-hollowbodies - y'know guitars that are becoming more and more relevant these days? Then there's a body wood section and a fretboard section, but what about the neck, what about the cap on the body? All these options make for significant tone changes. Why even have a fretboard option available when there's no neck wood option available. The neck wood is going to have a much bigger impact than the fretboard.

So, I humor it by entering in "rock/pop", "mahogany" body, "rosewood" fretboard and my 2 bridge pickup recommendations are 14k pickups. Talk about a hot/muddy tone (maybe good for metal, but not your average rock/pop music). From playing enough years, the tone chart gives me enough of an indication as to what I can expect, but this "tone wizard" thing appears to be garbage.

I'm not trying to be a dick here, but if you're going to release something that's supposed to guide people then make sure it's complete and is accurately going to give players what they want so they don't turn around and go "Seymour Duncan pickups suck".