Seymour W. Duncan Working At The Custom Shop

Seymour W. Duncan Working At The Custom Shop

.

 

Seymour W. Duncan repairs the pickups for Mexican artist Cesar Vampiro Lopez from Jaguares. Click here to watch the video.

Seymour Experiencing Hendrix

Experience Hendrix is a biennial concert tour featuring an all-star line up of music greats paying homage to the music and legacy of Jimi Hendrix. This very special concert launched on March 4, 2010, in Santa Barbara, in our own backyard.

Some of the artists who performed music written and inspired by Jimi Hendrix included Joe Satriani, Jonny Lang, Eric Johnson, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Cesar Rosas and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, Brad Whitford of Aerosmith, Doyle Bramhall II, Ernie Isley, Living Colour, Hubert Sumlin, Double Trouble’s Chris Layton, along with bassist Billy Cox.
 
I first got to the venue the night before the show; it was the end of Joe Satriani’s sound check. I met the stage manager and he set me up along with my son Cody with a press passes. Then I got to listen to Kenny Wayne’s sound check. Kenny Wayne sounded great. I got a chance to talk with Chris Layton, SRV’s drummer, along with Vernon Reid, Doug Wimbish and Corey Glover of Living Colour. I gave them each a gift bag that had some Seymour Duncan catalogs as well as pickups and pedals.
 
Speaking of pedals, some of the guys on stage had huge pedal boards. I was happy to see that there were a bunch of my pedals up there. The funny thing is that back when I used to watch Jimi play, he just used an Arbitor Fuzz Face and wah.
 
The next day, Brad Whitford’s tech, Mario, installed a set of my Antiquity pickups into the Strat® Brad was about play. He told me that those pickups made that particular guitar come alive. Eric Johnson told me that the Strat he was playing was once stolen from him and he recovered it many years later, and it had some pickups I custom wound for him many years ago. I still have Eric’s letter to me asking for those pickups. Speaking of stolen guitars, Joe Satriani told me that he had Pearly Gates humbuckers in one of his guitars that was stolen.

During the show, I had a chance to talk with a bunch of the guys. I enjoyed talking with Billy Cox who was playing our Quarter Pound bass pickups. I had a nice talk with Kenny Wayne about coming to the factory and winding some pickups. I spoke with Jonny Lang. I used to talk with Jonny around 15 years ago when he was just a teenager. Cesar and David from Los Lobos are old friends and I enjoyed speaking with them. I also talked with Janie Hendrix and Doyle Bramhall II.
 
When it was all over, I got to go home and sleep in my own bed. Not for the artists and crew. They were just beginning this tour which goes through the end of the month. There will be shows in major U.S. markets including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis and Atlanta. I hope you can make it because I’m sure you’ll love it as much as I did!

Here there are some pictures from the show!

Billy Cox, Experience Hendrix tour, Image by Cody Duncan – codyduncan.com

Eric Johnson, Experience Hendrix tour. Image by Cody Duncan – codyduncan.com

Brad Whitford, Experience Hendrix tour. Image by Cody Duncan – codyduncan.com

Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Experience Hendrix tour. Image by Cody Duncan – codyduncan.com

Cesar Rosas – Los Lobos, Experience Hendrix tour. Image by Cody Duncan – codyduncan.com

David Hidalgo – Los Lobos, Experience Hendrix tour. Image by Cody Duncan – codyduncan.com

Janie Hendrix, Seymour Duncan, Experience Hendrix tour. Image by Cody Duncan – codyduncan.com

Seymour Duncan, Eric Johnson backstage, Experience Hendrix tour. Image by Cody Duncan – codyduncan.com

Seymour Duncan, Brad Whitford backstage, Experience Hendrix tour. Image by Cody Duncan – codyduncan.com

Brad Whitford backstage working the Seymour Duncan pedal Tweak Fuzz, Experience Hendrix tour.

Another Seymour Duncan pedal Deja Vu, Experience Hendrix tour.

User Group Forum Guest Q&A

I think we have the best forum on the Internet with the best members. It’s been going strong since 1996, and the guys keep it real and keep it respectful. Lately, we’ve had guest luthiers and artists make appearances and do live question and answers with the forum members.

Here’s what’s upcoming:

Blues Saraceno July 29, 2:00 to 3:00 PM Pacific Time

Here are some of the past sessions:

Grover Jackson June 30, 1:00 to 3:00 PM Pacific Time
Bruce Kulick Tuesday May 11, 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM Pacific Time
Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine April 13, 2:00 to 3:00 PM Pacific Time
Mike Eldred, Director Marketing, Fender Custom Shop
Yngwie Malmsteen, guitar virtuoso
Jol Dantzig, formerly of Hamer
Rick Turner, my co-founder of D-TAR
Michael Ciravolo and Marc La Corte of Schecter
Pat Cummings of iGuitar (formerly Brian Moore Custom)
Matt Artinger
Peter Crossley

Seymour W. Duncan at Winter NAMM 2010

Seymour W. Duncan & Friends at NAMM 2010

.

Seymour Visits G&L Guitars

Seymour Visits G&L Guitars in Fullerton, California

.

 

On February 4, 2010, I had a chance to visit my friends at G&L Guitars in Fullerton, California. As most of you probably know, “G&L” stands for “George and Leo”: George is George Fullerton and Leo is the legendary Leo Fender. After Leo sold Fender to CBS in the mid-‘60s, he founded Music Man and after that, G&L, which was his last company before his death in 1991.
 
I showed up to the factory, located on Fender Avenue, together with Maricela Juarez, who manages my Custom Shop, and Evan Skopp who’s my VP of Business Development. Mr. Steve Grom, who’s G&L’s Director of Manufacturing, gave us a very thorough tour of the factory. I was really impressed by the quality and craftsmanship that goes into these instruments.
 
One of the biggest highlights for me was seeing Leo Fender’s office and work bench. The folks at G&L have preserved Leo’s work space exactly how it was on his last day of work. What a lot of folks don’t know is that when I was a young boy growing up in New Jersey, I used to write letters to Fender; and some of them were answered by Bill Carson. Years later, I had a chance to meet Leo and get to know him; and when I had reached a certain point in my career, Leo and I used to chat about pickup design. Sitting there behind his desk and at his bench, I really felt his presence.
 
I want to thank Steve along with all the others at G&L for showing us a great day and making us feel at home

Seymour W. Duncan works on a 1954 Strat Pickguard

Seymour W. Duncan works on a 1954 Stratocaster© Pickguard.

Les Paul

Les Paul More Than A Music Icon

2008 Les Paul at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Seymour W. Duncan.

Les Paul is more than a legendary music icon; he is music. Filling the world with beautiful instruments, inventions, and melodies, he has left a legacy behind him. We will all miss you Les but you will live on in our hearts and music.

Seymour Duncan helps Angus Young with his tone

Seymour Duncan helps Angus Young with his tone

We’ve been working behind-the-scenes with Angus Young for the past year. His tech, Takumi Suetsugu, contacted Seymour Duncan about dialing in the sound of Angus’ road guitars. Takumi had already been to a few pickup builders before he came to us. He worked with Seymour, Evan and Scott Miller, our Technical Lead, to come up a variation on Pearly Gates that really worked great in Angus’ performance guitars.
Once AC DC’s world tour ended, Takumi came up to the factory with Angus’ “Number One” road guitar along one of the other road guitars in his arsenal. The problem with Number One is that it was recently caught in a torrential downpour at an outdoor concert and it wasn’t working right. Furthermore, the other road guitars didn’t sound as good as Number One.
Our challenge was two-fold: get Number One up and running, and make the other road guitars sound as good as Number One. The first thing I did was a complete set of measurements. Then, I started listening to pickups and winding special humbuckers. Meanwhile, my guys were doing repairs to Number One to restore it after the moisture damage. Frank Falbo spent a lot of time on that guitar.
That’s it for now. Stay tuned and I’ll bring you up to date as we continue with this exciting project.

 

 

Peter Frampton an old time friend of Seymour Duncan Family

Peter Frampton an old time friend of Seymour Duncan Family In the intimate setting of the Chumash Casino’s Samala showroom, Peter Frampton brought his legendary songs and instantly recognizable sound to a capacity crowd of 1300 excited fans. It’s clear to see that Peter still loves every moment he has a guitar strapped on, and he brings his audience along for the ride. “Fun” is simply the best way to describe the vibe for the evening. Amongst those singing and vibing along, were our own Seymour, from our custom shop Maricela Juarez (MJ), Cathy Duncan, and VP of operations, Paul Davis. Seymour and Peter are long time friends and of course had a lot to reminisce about backstage. As far as the show was concerned, Mr. Frampton not only reminded everybody how much we’ve loved his music over the years but also just how accomplished he is as a player. It was a great mix of old and new, combining classic hits like “Show Me The way” and “Do You Feel Like We Do” with instrumentals from his 2007 Grammy winning album “Fingerprints” and some truly entertaining new stuff from his upcoming release. Guitars a plenty for this show, including a variety of Les Pauls. Most notable were the Gibson® 335 he used on a killer rendition of Junior Walkers’ Shotgun to open the show, and of course Peter’s signature series three-humbucker Les Paul Custom model. The cool pyramid-shaped Framptone® talk box is still one of the most innovative tone-shapers – simply helping define Peter’s signature sound. As always, he surrounds himself with only accomplished musicians, this time around he’s got Bob Arthur on the keys and acoustic guitar, Dan Wojciechowski (please don’t make me pronounce it) keeping the beat, John Regan on bass, and Adam Lester joining on guitar – playing a variety of Paul Reed Smiths through a pretty cool looking and great sounding 65® AMP.  Some of the bigger surprises of the evening included an appearance by his son, Julian, who is an up and coming player in his own right and a seriously scorching rendition of George Harrison’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps to end the evening. From left to right: Maricela Juarez, Peter Frampton, Seymour Duncan, Cathy Duncan and Paul Davis.

Seymour Duncan & Abigail Ybarra

Abigail Ybarra visits the Seymour Duncan Factory Hired as a pickup winder by Leo Fender in 1956, for the last 50 years, Abigail Ybarra has been creating some of the most recognizable guitar tones in history. When you think about the sounds of Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, James Burton, and Erics Clapton and Johnson, you’re hearing Abby’s handiwork. Employed to this day as a pickup winder for Fender’s Custom Shop, Abby decided to take a day off and check out the Seymour Duncan factory and visit with her old friend Seymour. The day started with a lunch at a Santa Barbara Mexican restaurant, at which several of Seymour Duncan’s pickup winders swapped secrets and stories with Abby. When she returned to the factory, she got to participate in our thrice-daily muscle stretching “dances.” This was followed by a factory tour, an interview with Seymour, and a photo session. The capper was watching Seymour and Abby both take turns hand-winding the same pickup. Check out the video below to get a sense of what happened on this special day in Santa Barbara.

Please check your items carefully and confirm they are correct for color, position, etc. We are not able to accommodate order changes or cancellations once you have completed the check out process.

My cart
Your cart is empty.

Looks like you haven't made a choice yet.

Got a discount code?
Subtotal$0.00
Tax$0.00
Shipping
Total$0.00
Your cart is empty. Shop now
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.