Testament does it again! If their last album “The Formation of Damnation” was an exclamation they’ve returned to form, their latest release “Dark Roots of Earth” is their statement that they’ve broke the mold and are recasting the genre. This album proves they aren’t concerned with what others are doing but with who they are and what mark they want to leave on thrash metal. “The Formation of Damnation” saw the return of Seymour Duncan artist Alex Skolnick to the Testament line-up.
Continue reading “Testament’s View of Mankind: “Dark Roots of Earth””

As I Lay Dying isn’t your typical metal band, nor have they followed the regular path of being debuted with a strong album and attempting to get back to that point. From their first album their music and skills continued to evolve when in 2007 they released An Ocean Between Us, an album that had a grammy nominated track and peaked at #8 on the Billboard top 200. After three years, they returned with yet another powerful album , The Powerless Rise, taking their time writing good material paid off when the album skyrocketed to be #10 on the Billboard charts. Part of this success is the playing of lead guitarist Nick Hipa, whether it be from brutal chord progressions or his screaming lead solo licks. We decided to sit down with him to learn more about his story. Continue reading “Interview with Nick Hipa of As I Lay Dying”

Dave Mustaine is universally known as the founder of Megadeth and forefather of thrash metal. Dave made significant contributions to Metallica as a member from 1981-1983, and has writing credits on their first two albums.
The Seymour Duncan User Group Forum held a Q&A with Mustaine in 2010, with fans pouring in to ask Dave any and all questions they thought they’d never get answered. Dave responded, albeit with brief and to-the-point answers, often offering a sentence or less. But Dave isn’t always so brief with his responses: he sat down with Joe Layden and wrote Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir, an autobiography about his life and struggles.
Continue reading “Hello Me… Meet the Real Me: Mustaine”

If you’ve been reading the Seymour Duncan web group forums for any period of time you would have noticed quite a bit of talk about modifying pickups. Many members have had great success with replacing magnets in humbuckers, making hybrid humbuckers from two different pickups, and more.

Continue reading “Tinkering with Pickups 101”

On August 5th, at 10:31 P.M. PT, the large nuclear powered rover named Curiosity will begin its treacherous descent down to the planet Mars. Over the course of seven minutes, a number of extremely advanced systems will kick in, in the hopes of slowing the rover down and gently depositing it into the surface of this foreign world. A key to this being successful is the descent radar, developed in part by Seymour Duncan’s own Wayne Rothermich. When not helping to develop pickups like our Blackouts, Wayne likes to challenge himself with coming up with out of this world technology. We recently talked with him about what those seven minutes will be like.
What’s the first thing that is going to happen as Curiosity begins its descent?
Continue reading “7 Minutes of Terror”

Yes, she shreds ….and what?

If you happened to be on the Duncan  site recently you may have seen the YouTube video of a young shredder peeling off Yngwie and GnR licks on an SRV – inspired Strat equipped with YJM Fury pickups. After you stopped smiling, you probably wondered “Who is this Sarah Michelle?” Wonder no more!
Continue reading “Who’s That Girl With the Seymour Duncans? It’s Sarah Michelle!”

The Floyd Rose tremolo is one the most popular locking tremolo designs in history, spawning multiple imitations and licensed copy versions. And with good reason – under proper conditions, unless the guitar’s neck somehow shifts (say, by you jumping off your drummer’s riser) it will not go out of tune. But some players find them extremely intimidating; if you’re unfamiliar with the methods of properly setting up and maintaining them, they can be! This guide will provide a few vital tips to help your locking trem perform reliably and correctly.

Continue reading “Tremolo Setups: The Care and Feeding of Your Floyd Rose”

If you’re like me, you love your Strat, but you’re not always in love with the traditional Strat bridge pickup.  For many of us, the bridge pickup is the first one to get swapped out when it’s time for an upgrade.  Alt rock, hard rock, punk, and metal tend to demand more power, midrange, and low end than a good ol’ vintage-style single coil can pump out.  Those of us whose tastes lean in that direction have eagerly wired up everything from high output singles to blazing hot active humbuckers in the bridge slot of their Strats.

Continue reading “Tapping into Versatility With a Tapped Single Coil”

Def Leppard made headlines recently with their decision to take back control of their catalog by re-recording ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’ and ‘Rock Of Ages.’ It was a bold move, especially with ‘Sugar’ regularly topping lists of great 80s rock songs and karaoke jams the world over. But Def Leppard are no strangers to the odd bold move, and neither is guitarist Vivian Campbell. There are the high-profile stints in Dio, Whitesnake and of course Def Leppard (and let’s not forget pioneering metal band Sweet Savage), as well as more recent endeavours such as Thin Lizzy and his cover band, Sir Sodoff and the Train Wrecks. Campbell has also recently been working with original Dio band members Vinny Appice, Jimmy Bain and Claude Schnell, along with vocalist Andy Freeman, to revisit the material they made together. We caught up with Campbell to see what’s up in his world, and to chat about his new Buddy Blaze 25h Anniversary VC Shredder guitar.
Continue reading “Talking Shredders, Leppards And Slang With Vivian Campbell”

At the end of the last Guitar Wiring article, we knew how to wire a Tele, a Les Paul and a Strat in their usual ways. Most stock guitar wiring is a variation on these three standard ways of wiring a guitar.
Using the knowledge contained in the previous four parts, we can now look at modifying our wiring schemes to achieve non-standard sounds. The first modification most people do is to replace one or more of the potentiometers with a push/pull pot. This is a pot that works in the same way as normal when you turn it, but also has a double-pole, double-throw (DPDT) switch attached. The switch is moved into one of its two possible positions by pulling the pot’s knob out and away from the guitar, or pushing it back in again.
Continue reading “Guitar Wiring Explored – Switches Part 1”