Being a rock and heavy metal fan, many are surprised to learn I have a deep soft spot for country and blues music. Many of the best guitar players in the music industry right now are session and touring musicians from the country genre.
Enter Jimmy Herman. Musician. Agriculturalist. Continue reading “Chatting With Carrie Underwood Guitarist Jimmy Herman”

Advancing as a guitar player is never seen as a slow and steady climb. It is more like a series of steps with pretty long spaces in between. While it might seem like you don’t get better for weeks or months at a time, one breakthrough can lead to months of inspiration. Those are the times I look forward to, and probably the reason I do this whole guitar thing. Modern ‘guitar culture’ sends us an endless stream of messages about what guitar to use, what to wear, how to look, what to listen to, and debate endlessly about gear. In the end, it is the player that has to push through all of that and not just reinforce what we already know, but be brave enough to venture into something we don’t. This article will help us along that journey, but only if we take the leap. Continue reading “Playing What You DON’T Know”

The term ‘indie’ has been used and misused over the years. What is ‘indie’ anyway? Fifteen years ago, nobody even heard of the upcoming new wave of ‘indie’ music from the UK, with for example Franz Ferdinand and the Arctic Monkeys, or a couple of years later, the Belgian group Triggerfinger. In those days, Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, R.E.M. and other bands were considered indie, though Pearl Jam and Nirvana could also be included under that tag, I suppose?  Continue reading “My Favorite Pickups For Indie”

The most overlooked effects of all time are the ones that come first in the chain. I’m talking about the tonal variations/special effects you can achieve with the volume (and tone) controls. These two sleeping giants affect the pickups directly, before they get to your sweet pedalboard, yet most guitarists barely touch them. This article will explain exactly what these knobs do (duh!) and how you can use them to fool your audience into thinking that they are listening to a cello, steel guitar, or keyboard. Once you get to know these knobs well, it may even affect future guitar purchases! Continue reading “Effects Basics: The Volume Control”

In June 1978, Seymour W. Duncan visited Seth E. Lover – inventor of the Gibson ‘Patent Applied For’ humbucking pickups – at his home in Garden Grove, California. Seymour and Seth later went on to develop the SH-55 Seth Lover Model humbucker. Here is that historic discussion as transcribed by Seymour in 1995.
I guess I’ll start with where you where raised and born and where you raised in California?
I was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan at what they called the Borgus Hospital and it’s no longer there, and a new one built outside of town. Where I was born I believe is now the Upjohn Company. They make drugs and so forth. I lived there till I was about seven years old and my parents moved to Hastings. From Hasting, Mich. I stayed there till after World War I then we moved to Muskeegan. Then in 1921 I was sent from Muskeegan I was sent to my grandparents in Pennsylvania. I lived with them till they both died then I went to work with another guy on a farm there and while I was still with my grandparents I built my first radio about 1922-23. I’d been interested in radio and while I was working on another farm I took a radio course “Radio Association of America.” A.G. Mohawk, President I can remember that. and I was really disappointed in that course because I was supposed to get parts to build a large radio, instead of that I got an “Airline” radio already built. [Laugh]. Less batteries and speakers. So I had a little money in the bank and took it out to buy batteries and a speaker for it and I wanted something I could put together. Continue reading “Seymour W. Duncan’s Interview With Seth Lover”

Humbuckers are defintely my favourite type of pickup. But your favourite guitar may only come routed for single coil pickups, so how are you to get your humbucker fix? Well you could modify the guitar by routing out the body and pickguard if the guitar has one, but that’s pretty extreme. This is where single coil sized humbuckers come into play. Seymour Duncan have a range of single coil sized humbuckers that offer all sorts of flavours, from vintage-spec through to fire-breathing modern models. The Seymour Duncan Custom Shop can also make pretty much anything you can dream of. I recently completed a custom guitar build with a humbucker/single (HS) set up. I wanted a single-coil-sized humbucker for the neck, and the first pickup I’m trying in this position is the Little ’59 for Strat.

Continue reading “Getting A Big PAF Sound With The Little ’59”

So you’ve been lured by a guitar with the HSS (humbucker/single coil/single coil) pickup configuration. Don’t worry, so have I. The promise of rockin’ tones with the bridge pickup alongside sweet, quacky vintage neck and middle pickups is too much to resist. This mullet-of-the-guitar-world (business in the front, party in the rear) is as old, as, well, the mullet. Can you really have it all in one guitar? And, if we can get all the sounds we need in one guitar, does this mean we don’t need any more guitars? The answer to this, like many things, lies somewhere in the middle. In fact, you can get single coils and humbuckers to work together, although it might take a little planning on your part. This article is about finding the perfect single coil (with as much classic sound as possible) to blend well with your humbucker.
Continue reading “Single Coils That Work Well With Humbuckers”

I suppose it’s easy to forget the origins or the modern electric guitar. After all, the first real electric guitar is still open for debate, all though I guess we can all safely assume it’s the Slingerland Songster Model 401 by now. Which is perhaps striking, since that guitar was preceded and followed by ‘electrified’ lapsteel guitars. Lapsteel guitars, or simply lapsteels, are instruments that are a bit like a regular guitar but with the action quite a bit higher so your slide doesn’t hit the frets all the time. There are a couple of acoustic slide-guitars, like the Weissenborn (with its unique hollow neck construction) as well as the dobro or any other resonator guitar. Yet, electric slide-guitars are also in the plenty and from what I’m seeing, most of those aren’t really equipped with pickups good enough to fully capture the amazing tones of the instrument. So… Here’s my low-down of my favorite pickups for a lapsteel guitar. Continue reading “Great Pickups For Lapsteel Guitars”

I was a humbucker-kinda guy for years. Sparkle, chime, glassiness and notched tones? Not my thing. I needed power, aggression, tightness, harmonics, articulation! But when I finally got a great Strat I understood the attraction. Personally I still can’t cope with the standard bridge pickup in a Strat. The way I use a Strat and my amps (I only use single channel amps, set up with a decent amount of gain and I roll down my volume pot if I need to clean it up) I need the bridge pickup to be a humbucker and the neck and middle pickups to be single coils. That being said, there are a few nice pickups to go in the bridge position of a Strat, real single coils, that put a smile on my face. Let’s take a look at the pickups for Strats that really work for me! Continue reading “My Favorite Pickups for Fender Stratocasters®”

It’s that time of year again where musical instrument manufacturers get together from all around the world to showcase their gear and you can bet Seymour Duncan will not disappoint with 9 new products to introduce at the show. We will also be having performances from Nick Johnston and Danny Young daily as well as a host of special performances from the likes of Alex Skolnick, Seymour W. Duncan, Dino Cazares and more! You’ll be able to get your picture taken with Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine, hang out with Dino Cazares and get your favorite album signed by the guys from Fit For An Autopsy or Keith Merrow, Ola Englund, Mark Holcomb and Wes Hauch.
Continue reading “Seymour Duncan NAMM 2015”