News

Seymour is BIG

Seymour has just entered history for building the world’s largest electric guitar pickup… again. The first time was in 1984 when he built the world’s largest single coil pickup. This time, he built an even larger pickup. And this time it was a humbucker.

The pickup was built for the Discovery Channel's series, BIG! (Tuesday nights at 9pm EST), which follows a team of master craftsmen who build very large, working things like a popcorn popper, a motorcycle, a blender and, in this case, an electric guitar. The show's producers tapped Seymour to build the pickup for the 32-foot guitar. Once built and installed, Seymour played the giant guitar on the show, with some help from rock guitar icon, Peter Frampton.

The big pickup, like the guitar, was 9x scale. So, for example, a standard humbucker, which is a little more than two and one-half inches in length, was nearly two feet long, once Seymour was finished with it. After the pickup was wound with copper wire and the 21-pound magnet installed, the final weight was over 157 pounds - just for the pickup! Though huge in stature, the pickup was an accurate scale model of Seth Lover's original 1955 "patent applied for" humbucker design, which celebrates its 50th Anniversary next year.

A second giant pickup, identical to the record-breaker, will be on display in our 2005 Winter NAMM booth (booth #4458); after which time, it will make its permanent home in NAMM's Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, California.

Covered Trembuckers

In response to increasing customer demand, we now offer Trembuckers in nickel and gold-plated covers. “Trembucker” is our brand name for the wider-spaced humbucking pickups, designed to fit the string spacing most commonly associated with Floyd Rose® or vintage vibrato bridges with a string spacing of 2.070” or 52.6mm, measured center-of-high-string-to-center-of-low-string over the bridge pickup. This spacing issue usually applies to the bridge position pickup only, which is why Trembuckers are recommended for the bridge position. All Trembuckers will be available with covers, except the Parallel Axis models.

The covered Trembuckers feature a nickel silver substrate, which is hand-buffed and plated in either nickel or 24-karat hard gold.

After the cover is installed, the pickups are vacuum wax potted for squeal-free performance and then hand-polished to a gleaming luster. The nickel silver material was chosen for its non-ferrous properties, which do not influence the sound of the pickup. It's the same material we use on our covered standard humbucker pickups, designed for bridges with string spacing of 1.930" or 49mm. According to Billy Gill, Seymour Duncan's Sales Manager, "If you're not sure if you need a humbucker or a Trembucker, just measure from the middle of the high string to the middle of the low string, directly over the bridge pickup. If it's greater than two inches or 50mm, go for a Trembucker. If it's less than two inches or 50mm, go for a humbucker."

Pre-Matched Pickup Sets

Ever wonder why customers don’t buy electric guitar pickups? We did. So we undertook detailed market research to determine the biggest factor as to why customers don’t make the purchase decision. It turns out that our huge array of pickups (108 different series, at last count) was working for us and against us at the same time. The biggest reason for reluctant customers: “too many pickups from which to choose.”

So, to make the choosing easier, we released our most popular pickup models in pre-matched sets. This will take the guesswork out of determining which pickups work well together. The initial release of matched sets includes the following, each targeted to a specific type of customer and their musical taste:

Vintage Blues™
Made up of a pair of calibrated SH-1 '59 Model pickups for the neck and bridge positions. This set is based on the vintage P.A.F. humbuckers of the late '50s and is perfect for blues, jazz, and classic rock.

Hot Rodded Humbucker™
Matches an SH-2n Jazz Model for the neck position with and an SH-4 JB Model for the bridge position. This is Seymour's favorite humbucker set and is widely used for everything from blues-rock to metal.

Distortion Mayhem™
Includes a duo of SH-6 Duncan Distortion humbuckers for the neck and bridge positions. This is an aggressive youth-oriented set, which was designed for the heaviest punk, metal, and hardcore guitar tones.

California '50s™
Matched and calibrated set of SSL-1 Vintage Staggered pickups for Stratocaster® guitars. The pickups are authentic '50s reproduction Alnico 5 vintage single coils, and work great for surf, Country, blues and classic rock.

Everything Axe™
Combines an SJBJ-1b JB Jr. for the bridge position with an SDBR-1n Duckbucker and SL59-1n Little '59 for the middle and neck positions. This is an extremely versatile set that will coax everything from vintage to heavy tones from a Stratocaster. It works with all musical styles, and each of the pickups is hum canceling.

All of the pickups in the matched sets are hand built in our Santa Barbara, California workshop and include all necessary mounting hardware and wiring instructions.

D-TAR

Congratulations to D-TAR and to Seymour Duncan for both picking up Bronze Awards in Acoustic Guitar Magazine’s 2004 Players’ Choice Awards. D-TAR captured the Bronze in the category called “Recording & Performance Gear – Pickups”; and Seymour Duncan garnered the Bronze in “Most Popular Guitar Performance Gear Manufacturer.” These awards were selected by the folks out there using the products and making music; not by the editors or “experts in the field.” The awards went to product lines, and not to individual products.

In other D-TAR news, welcome David Crosby and Graham Nash to the D-TAR family. Both David and Graham are using Timber-Line™ under saddle transducers (as well as Seymour Duncan Mag Mic soundhole pickups). Singer-songwriters David Wilcox and Phil Roy incorporated the Equinox™ three-band parametric EQ and Solstice™ two-channel mixer into their respective stage setups. Also, former Toad the Wet Sprocket front man Glen Phillips has recently added a D-TAR Solstice two-channel mixer to his live rig. Check out www.dtar.com for a list of all signed artists and an informative User Group Forum.

Make sure to stop by D-TAR's NAMM booth, #4458, to demo all the exciting D-TAR products, including a pre-release version of Mama Bear™, our 32-bit digital preamp.

JB Wins Players Choice Award

Congratulations to the venerable SH-4 JB Model humbucker for winning “Best Electric Guitar Pickup” in the Guitar Player Readers’ Choice Awards. Even after 30 years, the JB continues to be our top seller. Subscribers and newsstand buyers of Guitar Player were directed to write in their votes for their favorite gear of all time. The votes were independently tabulated. The awards reflect the desires of Guitar Player readers, who also voted the SA-1 Acoustic Tube as a finalist in the “Best Acoustic Guitar Pickup” category.

Seymour Rocks Canada

Everyone knows Seymour-the-Pickup-Winder, but to audiences in the Great White North last fall, he was known as Seymour-the-Shredder. Together with VP Marketing Evan Skopp, Seymour jammed for audiences in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Check out the video of the Vancouver show on our website.

Swag Alert: Straps & Stickers

From the “Give Us More Swag Department” come new guitar straps and road case stickers. The straps are two-inch cotton webbing with soft, suede tips and a pewter finish metallic “S” logo. The stickers are 5-inch ovals, also with the “S” logo. Stop by our NAMM booth, #4458, to check ‘em out!