Whenever we make a new product at Seymour Duncan, it has to benefit players. It has to make life easier and tone better for those who it’s made for. Duality is made unlike any other active pickup, and it opens up a whole new exciting chapter for what’s possible.

We’ve made pickups that combine aspects of passive and active before: the Gus G Blackouts set, Blackouts Modular Preamp and Blackouts Coil Pack System all involve using passive pickups with a volume-pot-mounted active preamp. The result is a tone that’s about 2/3 Blackouts voicing and 1/3 the voicing of whatever pickup you plug into the BMP. Many players love this system.

Duality takes a different approach. Using a unique new architecture, Duality places more emphasis on the sound of the coils themselves. That means you get more of the ‘string detail’ and fretting-hand phrasing qualities of passive pickups, but you also get all the benefits of actives: extremely low noise, high headroom, and the signal remains strong over extremely long cable runs. And because we’re able to put more of the string into the sound of the pickup, Duality is the most interactive active pickup you’ll ever find.

“We’ve spent a lot of time reimagining what an active pickup could sound, feel and look like,” Seymour Duncan SVP of Products & CRO Max Gutnik says. “The voicing is very versatile. From super-modern metal with a lot of aggressive attack to legitimately authentic blues and country tones.” The lows are tight and percussive, the mids are strong and vibrant, and the highs are clear and airy. “You can really hear the tone coming through, as opposed to a lot of other actives where the preamp masks what’s going on with the guitar,” Max says. “Duality will accentuate what you’re getting from your instrument.”

Duality is also ‘plug-and-play’: if your guitar already has actives, you simply need to pop out your existing pickups and drop Duality right in. It’s available in individual neck, bridge and Trembucker versions or in a matched set, and you can get it with black uncovered bobbins or zebra uncovered bobbins.