Category Archives: Installation/setup

Sarah Longfield can probably beat you up on guitar – and will use two more strings doing it. Since starting on the piano early and switching to guitar at the age of 12, Sarah’s interests have widened to include drums and keyboards. After learning the basics on 6-string guitars for a couple of years she transitioned to 7 and finally 8-string guitars as her musical interests turned toward heavy, down-tuned metal.

For those that read my last review of the 59/Custom Hybrid and the STK-S7 used as an S/H combo (or as a primer for anyone that didn’t), l love Strats with Floyds and S/H pickup combos. That’s probably my No.1 favorite pickup combo, followed by a S/S/S combo with a vintage Strat bridge, and then any LP-style two humbucker setup (Floyd optional!).

Building your own Strat-style guitar is one of the most fun and rewarding experiences I’ve discovered. I started as a teen, inspired by Eddie Van Halen, and never stopped. I was mesmerized by all the inner workings and details that came together to make a killer sounding, classy-looking guitar that played great too.

Some players, myself included, have noticed a subtle but palpable difference between direct-mounted pickups and those mounted more traditionally in pickguards, or in the case of most Super-Strats, mounting rings.

In some cases, a bass that plays great, may not sound great. Customizing your bass with Seymour Duncan pickups, a new pickguard, knobs and a Hipshot D-tuner, are just a few ways you can turn that old bass into one of your main basses.

Photo above: Guitarist Tim Brennan The Dropkick Murphy’s dropkick Duncan’s into their guitars with help from tech extraordinaire …..drum roll please….. Grizz Middleton! It’s Saint Patrick day every day when you’re with the Dropkick Murphy’s. A rare blend of Irish-American Celtic Punk, these guys keep the heavy guitar tones, accordions, and banjos true to their…

The P in P-rails stands for Phunk! When the guitar player from the Parliament Funkadelic called and said she wasn’t happy with the tone from her stock pickups, Seymour Duncan didn’t hesitate. A tech from the Duncan factory met Shaunna Hall at the Gibson Amphitheater a few hours before the show to bring her guitar…

Since setting up Dantzig Guitar Design, Jol Dantzig relies on Seymour Duncan Custom Shop pickups for his no-compromise guitar masterpieces.

When Blame Sally took the stage at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall on April 29 and 30, the quartet showcased tunes from Speeding Ticket and a Valentine, the Bay Area band’s fifth album. As has often been noted about Blame Sally, this all-female outfit boasts not only strong compositional and vocal skills, but serious…

Not even doctors make house calls anymore. Fortunately for producer legend Daniel Lanois, Seymour, custom shop manager Maricela “MJ” Juarez and tech guru Scott Miller paid a visit to the guitar guru’s Silverlake, CA home to deliver a set of Stereo Gretsch Filtertron pickups that MJ specifically re-created for him. Lanois has produced albums by…