News

New from D-TAR - Mama Bear™

For years, acoustic guitars have relied on pickups for amplification. One problem: using pickups, even the best acoustic guitars deliver an over-simplification of true acoustic tone complexity when amplified. D-TAR, our sister company, has just solved that with a revolutionary new product called Mama Bear. Using proprietary technology called Acoustic Guitar Emulation (AGE™), Mama Bear takes your guitar into the digital realm, neutralizes the pickup, and then restores the natural body resonance.

Using a very simple interface - no menus or scrolling - Mama Bear allows you to use two 16-position knobs to determine your Input Source and your Target Instrument. The Input Source is a "set and forget" digital filter selector that tells Mama Bear what kind of pickup you're using; for example, piezo film, piezo ceramic, magnetic, solid body electric with piezo bridge, etc. Mama Bear's AGE technology kicks in with the Target Instrument knob. Here, you tell Mama Bear what kind acoustic guitar you want to emulate. There are 16 emulations that range from a parlor to orchestra models to dreadnoughts to jumbos; with a jazz box, a gypsy jazz guitar, and couple of resonators thrown in for good measure. You can play around with the various emulations to get amazing versatility out of your pickup-equipped instrument. Or, you can choose the emulation that most closely matches your acoustic guitar. The result: now the finest acoustic guitars can sound like, well... themselves. Only louder.

Learn more about Mama Bear and download the manual, at www.dtar.com.

Seymour Picks Up Honor

On July 26, 2005, Seymour received an honor from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. The award was for “Outstanding Achievement in Guitar Electronics,” and was presented in commemoration of his thirty-plus years of contribution to the industry. The ceremony capped a day in which Seymour, along with VP Marketing Evan Skopp, taught seminars and workshops for attendees at Duquesne’s Summer Guitar Workshop.

After the awards presentation, Seymour led an all-star jam, which included co-honoree Steve Dudas (Ringo Starr, Ozzy Osbourne), Steve Trovato (Professor USC Guitar Department) and Skopp.

New Beanie

We’ve replaced our old knit cap with an oh-so-hip black knit beanie. The beanie features the “S” logo on one side and “Seymour Duncan” on the other. Worn together with the Seymour Duncan guitar strap, the new beanie is the perfect accessory for every well-dressed Toneologist.

This past fall, Seymour and VP Marketing, Evan Skopp, spent a week in the UK as guests of Aria (UK) Ltd., Seymour Duncan’s exclusive distributor in UK and Ireland. The tour included stops in Glasgow, Scotland; Leeds, Birmingham, Newport, Wales; and London. Each of these stops included a product-training seminar lead by Evan, and a meet and greet with Seymour, complete with a PowerPoint presentation showing some of the greats Seymour has worked with over the years. In Birmingham, a couple dozen members of the Seymour Duncan User Group Forum met for a dinner and a chance to jam with Seymour. When the week was over, Seymour stayed in London a few extra days to hang out with his friends, like Mark Knopfler.