• The two most misunderstood specs on the Tone Chart are the DC resistance and resonant peak numbers. The DC resistance refers to the resistance of the coil windings. For humbuckers the DC resistance is the sum of both coils....
  • P.A.F. is an acronym for Patent Applied For and is a nickname given to the original Gibson humbuckers designed in 1955. These pickups had a sticker on the bottom that had "Patent Applied For" on them and years later...
  • Passive pickups use a magnetic source of energy and relatively large coils of wire to generate their signal. Active pickups use smaller coils of wire and have a preamp built into the pickup to boost the signal. The upside...
  • There are a couple of differences. Low output pickups drive the front end of your amp less and tend to produce a more bluesy or more vintage distortion. They have a very open feel to their tone. High output...
  • Eighteen volts doesn't mean twice the gain of a 9-volt pickup. What it means is that the pickup will swing twice as much output voltage before its internal preamp starts to clip. That means less distortion in the pickup's...
  • The difference in bridge vs. neck/middle pickups is their output. There is naturally less volume generated from the bridge pickup due to less string movement the closer the pickup is to the bridge. Bridge pickups are usually wound hotter...
  • No. It's correct that some of our single-coil-sized humbuckers (JB Jr., Little '59, Li'l Screamin' Demon, Duckbuckers, Hot Rails, Cool Rails, Vintage Rails and the new Classic Stack Plus) have circuit boards on the undersides of the pickup. However,...
  • First and foremost is tone. Seymour Duncan and his staff have spent years researching and developing guitar pickups that sound great. At Seymour Duncan the goal has never been about how to make pickups faster or cheaper, but how...