“We all pushed ourselves on [Periphery V: Djent is Not a Genre] much harder than we ever have before,” explains Mark Holcomb.

As one of three six-, seven- and eight-string axe-rippers in GRAMMY® Award-nominated Djent practitioners Periphery, guitarist Mark Holcomb brings a timeless old-school metalhead sensibility to the genre-agnostic progressive metal quintet’s spellbinding virtuosity. For Mark and Periphery, it’s not enough to only have the best guitar pickups for metal. They also need aggressive clarity for clean and mid-gain playing solo and with a saturated full-band mix.

Most of all, to make the grade with Periphery, Mark’s pickups need to have the depth and musicality necessary to push progressive metal composition, musicianship and guitar tone into the future. Enter the Mark Holcomb Scarlet & Scourge Signature pickups in collaboration with Seymour Duncan.

To perfect Periphery V’s fiery fretwork in the studio and on the road, Mark collaborated with legendary Maryland luthier Paul Reed Smith to develop the PRS Guitars SE Mark Holcomb signature model. With its wide neck, 26.5” scale length and flat 20” radius fretboard, the PRS Guitars Mark Holcomb SE deviates from tradition to enable the drop tunings and intense string-bending at the core of Periphery’s heavy tech-metal machinery.

As a versatile and reliable mainstay in Periphery’s live setup, Mark’s signature guitar needs to cover a lot of sonic ground. In addition to the tonal innovations heard on Periphery V, Mark also needs to dive deep into his Axe-Fx patches to access sounds from the band’s entire 17-year career.

From the cleanest cleans to ultra-modern high-gain crunch, Periphery’s music demands articulate and low-noise guitar pickups that pack a mean sucker punch—just like the band’s lightning-fast yet undeniably headbang-worthy polyrhythms.

“Working with PRS on my signature model, there’s this insane amount of prestige and attention to detail. What we’ve accomplished with the Seymour Duncan Scarlet & Scourge pickups is the same thing,” says Holcomb. “We’re seeing how Seymour Duncan, like PRS, has a culture of innovation and legacy built into the company.”

Scarlet & Scourge—Mark Holcomb Signature Humbuckers

Pickups exist at a crucial point in the guitar’s signal path—where sound becomes electricity. Where emotion becomes intent. The razor’s edge where what Periphery co-guitarist Misha Mansoor describes as “time, stress and suffering” become monolithic prog-metal anthems.

Enter Scarlet & Scourge.

Mark Holcomb’s new signature humbuckers excel at high-gain metal sounds, but like Periphery’s multilayered compositions, there’s much more to Scarlet & Scourge than meets the ear.

“The spirit of the Scarlet & Scourge signature pickups—and my relationship with Seymour Duncan—is openness to iteration,” says Holcomb. “It’s about constantly trying new things and being open to dialogue about improving upon previously established concepts with an already excellent track record.”

Besides delivering crushing rhythm and searing lead tones with tube amps and high-gain amp modelers alike, Scarlet & Scourge are carefully voiced for clean and mid-gain guitar sounds. On Periphery V singles “Wildfire” and “Zagreus,” Holcomb’s tone takes a hairpin turn from dense, downtuned brutality to ambient cleans, melodic mid-gain leads and back again. Chaotic blast beat riffage, chunky jazz voicings on extended-range guitars—it’s all the same to Scarlet & Scourge.

Seeing Red—Mark Holcomb Scarlet Neck Humbucker

To navigate Periphery’s dramatic tonal shifts, Mark and the Seymour Duncan engineering team calibrated Scarlet’s ceramic magnet for the note definition and string-to-string clarity required for complex chord voicings in drop tunings—both clean and with heavy distortion. Coil splitting keeps single-coil sounds close at hand for added sparkle and chime—particularly when using the in-between positions of guitars equipped with five-way switching. They also pair perfectly with three-way switch setups.

Like Mark’s other signature neck pickup, Alpha—suited for Periphery’s heaviest riffs—Scarlet contains a ceramic magnet construction but with an output voiced for enhanced clarity with mid-gain and clean tones. Paired with the Scourge bridge humbucker, Mark conjures the versatile sonic palette necessary to find his place within the mix of Periphery’s vicious three-guitar assault.

Low Tunings, High Gain—Mark Holcomb Scourge Bridge Humbucker

With tube amps or amp modelers (Mark’s preference), the Scourge bridge Humbucker is key to Periphery’s ideal overdriven amp sounds. The Alnico 8 magnet gives the Scourge bridge pickup all the percussive low-end grunt needed for the Djentiest drop-tuning riff fests. In the mid-range, Scourge’s sound is focused and surprisingly sweet with focused harmonics for a tight, modern sound.

Up top, Scourge sounds sharp but never icepick-y or harsh. Advanced techniques like hybrid picking, double thumping, sweep picking and more come through crystal clear, allowing Mark to make full use of his skills on Periphery’s cinematic prog-metal epics.

Extreme Clarity and Articulation with Effects

Fans of Periphery likely already know that the band utilizes sophisticated hybrid amp setups in the recording studio and on tour.

Combining the best of tube amps, amp modeling and effects pedals, Mark Holcomb, Jake Bowen and Misha Mansoor sculpt an intricate latticework of complimentary guitar sounds at times dripping wet with delays, pitch shifters and reverb. A pickup that isn’t up to the task of navigating a complex wet/dry signal path will turn the signal to an indistinct, muddy wash.

To keep the Scarlet & Scourge pickup set sounding crisp even with heavy signal processing, Mark and the Seymour Duncan team let the versatility and yet unexplored aural frontier of amp modeling technology inspire their design philosophy.

Mark Holcomb on Achieving Improved Articulation with Coil-Splitting Tones

“In the last seven or eight years, I’ve really leaned on splitting the coils of my pickups for mid-gain tones during the heavy sections of Periphery songs. It’s so powerful to dial down the classic (almost cliché) really gain-saturated sound and instead go for a split-coil tone—something with way more articulation.

You sacrifice some gain and instead the emphasis is on the pick attack. You can really hear that shine in some mid-gain moments on the last three or four Periphery records. You get to hear every detail of what you’re playing and how you’re picking. And to me, it’s just so satisfying.”

Periphery Infinity

The album bio for Periphery V describes the sound “of a band bravely navigating the outer margins of its sound while progressing thoughtfully beyond the expected.”

For Mark Holcomb, the Scarlet & Scourge signature humbuckers are crucial to achieving his sound—in all its infinite possibilities.

Ready to level up your guitar sound? Learn more about the Scarlet & Scourge Marc Holcomb Signature Humbuckers.

Periphery V: Djent is not a Genre is out March 10, 2023.

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