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Magnet Type Alnico II Alnico V Ceramic Good for Warming up a bright-sounding guitar Adding punch to a warm guitar Adding punch and output to a warm guitar General Tone Warm, smooth, round, enhanced mids, soft and spongy bass, soft attack Bright and glassy, exceptional dynamics and tight bass end, sharp attack Bright with enhanced…

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. Generally the more wire that is used in a pickup coil the higher its resistance and…

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 the name was shortened by musicians to P.A.F. The pickups that Gibson later released had stickers…

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 to active pickups is that the smaller coils in them make active pickups far less susceptible…

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 pickups drive your amp harder and can sound more compressed with a tighter feel. Also, higher…

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 than neck/middle pickups to compensate for the reduced string movement. This produces an even output between…

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 internal pre-amp, but the potential for more distortion in your amplifier’s input stage. If you’re a…

First and foremost is tone. We 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 better sounding pickups can be made. Nothing but the highest quality materials and, in some cases, vintage correct components are…

Seymour Duncan offers our 21 Day Real World Exchange Policy on all new pickups purchased in the U.S. and some other participating countries, which states the following: If for any reason you’re not satisfied with the pickup’s sound or construction, return it and your receipt to your dealer, or direct to the factory within 21…

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