By Jon Moody

You did it, you finally did it! You booked recording time in a studio, filled out all the pre-production forms and possibly even sent in a deposit (if required) and your album is getting recorded. Or, maybe you just finally confirmed a date when you’re going into a friend’s basement to lay down some solid tunes for a demo and have them work their ProTools magic to make you sound great, and get you gigs. Continue reading “Things To Think About Before Recording”

Announced at NAMM this year and already voted a winner by Guitar World magazine: The Seymour Duncan Palladium pedal is designed for those that like tight, high-gain, driven guitar tones. 

This is a feature-packed pedal with a lot of control over the tone-shaping aspect of the drive, and it should appeal to those that like to completely control their sound. Designed for use either with a clean amp or straight into a power amp, the Palladium is a high gain preamp-style pedal.

The controls include a Mid Swept EQ along with Bass/Treble knobs, Presence and a Resonance control to keep your sound tight and focused in the lower frequencies. There are three stages to the drive section and this should allow you to get very high gain if required. The pedal also has a Boost dial, just in case you need an extra bit of oomph!

I cannot see this being for everyone. It will probably appeal to players with a taste for modern, high-gain drives with focused lows and controllable mids. With its extensive options to tweak the sound, I can imagine you can pull some very tight, percussive riffs out of a pedal like the Palladium.

The Palladium is available in either a white or a black finish and has a very clean look. The controls are well labelled and the layout is very amp-like in its appearance. It should be easy to work with and get good-sounding results, although the large number of controls might make it harder to dial in a tone quickly. However, I will have to try one out before I can say for sure. They are due to ship soon and should be available end of March in the UK.

By Martina Fasano

Whether it’s with Sanctuary, Nevermore, through his solo work, or most recently with Arch Enemy, Jeff Loomis has developed the reputation of being on of metal’s elite guitar players. His column in Guitar World magazine, “Merchant of Menace” provided a great many shredders with the tools they needed to try and emulate his virtuoso playing, while some of us tried to keep up with him through various instructional videos. We caught up with Jeff shortly after his signature Seymour Duncan pickup set was announced at the 2016 Winter NAMM show and asked him about all things guitar, gear, and even who he’d switch places with as a musician. Check it out. Continue reading “Jeff Loomis: Seymour Duncan’s Newest Signature Artist”

NewBay Media is pleased to announce the winners of the 2016 Super NAMM Awards.

SANTA BARBARA, CA, March 7, 2016 – Seymour Duncan, a leading manufacturer of pickups and pedals, announces the release of their new Jeff Loomis Signature Blackouts™ series of active humbucker pickups. This series consists of high–output active humbuckers developed to deliver the dynamic performance unique to active pickups, with the look, tone and feel of a great set of passive pickups.

“It’s an honor to be a part of the Seymour Duncan family,” said Jeff Loomis, guitarist in Arch Enemy and Conquering Dystopia. “With the design my new signature pickup, we’ve created a set that’s extremely rich in harmonic tones for leads and pick attack, and carries a tight low end for rhythm playing. This pickup is perfect for anyone trying to emulate my hard riffs.”

“After carefully crafting these pickups to Jeff’s specification, we asked him to take the prototypes on tour with Arch Enemy and put them to the test,” said Max Gutnik, SVP of products and CRO at Seymour Duncan. “After months of collaboration, we’re excited for guitarists to experience the tone and feel these signature Blackouts deliver.”

The Jeff Loomis Signature Blackouts are available in 6 and 7-string passive mount versions with black brushed nickel covers, as well as an active mount 7-string soapbar version.

The Jeff Loomis Signature Blackouts series is available now. For more information, please visit seymourduncan.com.

About Seymour Duncan
Seymour Duncan celebrates a rich history as the world’s leading pickup and pedal manufacturer. Since 1976, Seymour Duncan has helped the world’s artists develop their own unique, signature sounds. This is accomplished through a dedicated team of craftsman at their Santa Barbara, California office. For more information, please visit seymourduncan.com.

Media contact:
Elysse Miller
Seymour Duncan
[email protected]

By Jay Hale

The Seymour Duncan JB humbucker is beyond iconic in the rock world. Its tone is so distinctive, so inherently familiar and pleasing it’s almost what you expect to hear on a rock recording. Since its introduction in the 70s it has appeared on so many recordings you probably don’t realize it. Not for nothing is it still the most popular replacement and OEM pickup in the business – has been for years. It is, after all, the sound of rock. But have you ever wondered which of the greatest solos ever committed to tape that used a JB? Here’s my personal list. What’s yours?  Continue reading “Classic Solos Played With The JB Humbucker”

Photo by Katie Pryor

By Martina Fasano

I first met Kimberly Freeman very briefly at the NAMM show, just after she signed some autographs together with the members of Doll Skin and rock legend Lita Ford. Everyone around (fans and industry types alike) was absolutely astounded at how fan-friendly she was: handing out necklaces to fans that had waited in line to meet her. That’s class ladies and gentlemen. Continue reading “Voices of Metal: Kimberly Freeman of One-Eyed Doll”

Oh boy, oh boy. Look at this little blue beauty from Seymour Duncan – the Catalina Chorus pedal. The pedal is touting a new Dynamic Expression feature. Max Gutnik, SVP of products and CRO of Seymour Duncan notes that, “Dynamic Expression feature gives players the ultimate control – from subtle to bold, and everything in-between, without changing settings every other song or riding the footswitch all night.” This sounds awesome, and the type of problem Gutnik is describing is all too common for many chorus pedals on the market.

Here is the description from SD:

Bottom line, to steal a quote Dale and Brennan: “It’s the f**ckin’ Catalina Chorus Pedal.”

Do you want to win the Seymour Duncan pedal of your choice and a custom pedal board by Creation Music Company? We’ve teamed up with Creation to run a giveaway together. which you can enter here.

You can see our range of pedals on this page, including gain pedals (the Pickup Booster, 805 Overdrive, Dirty Deed Distortion and Palladium Gain Stage), compressors (the Vise Grip for guitar and the Studio Bass Compressor), modulation (Shapeshifter Stereo Tremolo and Catalina Dynamic Chorus) and delay (the Vapor Trail analog delay). And you can check out Creation Music Company’s custom guitar pedalboards here. Creation Music Company was founded in the Summer of 2013 as Creation Pedalboards by John Snyder and father Bruce Snyder to meet the growing demand of the custom pedalboard world.

Rich Osweiler of Premier Guitar demos Seymour Duncan Palladium Gain Stage and Catalina Chorus Pedals at Winter NAMM 2016.