Category Archives: News

The quest for perfect guitar tone is filled with obstacles—scales to learn, techniques to master, gear to acquire and so on. But nothing stops curious guitarists from learning their way around the instrument quite like the “tone talk” jargon that sometimes fills guitar forums, and even entire subreddits, with confusion. While the qualities that make…

The Seymour Duncan ’59 Model and SH-5 Custom humbucker pairing is a favorite around Seymour Duncan. And we know a thing or two about pairing versatile pickups. From our prepared sets to our loaded pickguards, we’ve been combining great pickup tones for years. In fact, you can read about another ’59-combo in Part 1 of…

With so many PAF-style pickups on the market, it can be hard to tell them apart. Nearly every pickup maker offers these simple combinations of wire, bobbins, and magnets claiming to capture that 1959 Gibson Les Paul mojo. We offer a variety of pickups that deliver that Kalamazoo-era mojo, right down to the wire. To…

April Kae (of IMANIGOLD) is not only an artist but also very active in causes that she’s passionate about. Recently, we got to ask April a few questions, to discuss her musical journey as a bass player as well as her first instrument, favorite album and plans for touring. (Photo above by Tommy Rizzoli.)  …

Seymour Duncan has a handful of great guitar amps to his name along with his pickups, and the Convertible is his crown jewel. Released around 1980-81, the Convertible was an all-tube, modular preamp design so full of ground-breaking features that Jeff Beck himself made them his go-to rig. But these features made the amplifiers WAY…

Finding the right acoustic pickup can be difficult. There are several different kinds, and each has its technical requirements to get the best performance. On top of that, you need to consider the rest of your signal chain and how it interacts. And finally, each type of acoustic guitar pickup has a unique sound with…

Guitar tone pot value is something most of us don’t think about unless you really like to get into the weeds of tone. But many players do like to mix and match them, optimizing their tone control and guitar to play, sound, and react just the way they want. So we’re going to take a…

Push-pull pots can turn a regular guitar into an insanely flexible tonal solution for every occasion. Most commonly used for eliciting single-coil-like tones from humbuckers, players can sometimes underestimate what all push-pull potentiometers can do. But that’s a mistake, because they can work all kinds of magic while hiding invisibly in the routing your guitar…

As soon as Ibanez released their AZ line of electric guitars, the web lit up with searches for Ibanez AZ wiring diagrams. Everyone wanted to know what the Ibanez AZ pickups were. And that’s no surprise. The Ibanez AZ wiring is something new, and Ibanez players are one of the most loyal and knowledgeable fan…

The effect of an electric guitar killswitch has been around a long time. For decades players like Tom Morello achieved a unique chopped-up tone like Rage Against The Machine’s “Bulls on Parade” solo. And of course, Van Halen fanatics tried to replicate the staccato effect with which Eddie ended his “You Really Got Me” solo….