Katatonia (www.myspace.com/katatonia) is a band that defines the new wave of Swedish metal. Their heavy overtones, combined with haunting, melodic waves of sound, are a perfect mix of doom metal and modern rock. Katatonia’s earlier albums, Dance of December Souls and Brave Murder Day, focused more on traditional Swedish doom; meanwhile, their first crossover CD, Discouraged Ones, and the recent Night Is the New Day, gravitate to more of a modern style with symphonic synths and heavy, low-tuned guitars.
Since Katatonia covers many different styles of music, it is important for guitarist Anders Nystrom to have a wide variety of tones at his fingertips. Pickup-wise, his new signature Mayones guitars will have AHB-1 Blackouts active pickups, high-outputTB-6 Duncan Distortion trembuckers, tremendously versatile SHPR-1b P-Rails,
and smooth and fat SCR-1n Cool Rails to help him get the dirtiest of the dirty and the cleanest of the clean.

Here’s why Anders chose Seymour Duncan: “I wanted the best, and I got the best! With Seymour Duncan’s top-of-the-line arsenal of both active and passive pickups — and even the inventive humbucker/single-coil hybrids in between — I have finally found the perfect configuration for my guitars to go from a loud, fierce bite to a mellow, warm sparkle in the blink of an eye. I’m thrilled to have these pickups installed to deliver my ultimate tone! Thank you Seymour Duncan!”
Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Katatonia is playing a few special anniversary gigs in Europe this May, presented as the 2011 ‘Last Fair Day Gone Night – An Evening With Katatonia’ tour. The London show will be shot for a DVD, to be released autumn 2011. There will be a big prize pot for all VIP ticket holders to win very special gear and exclusive items. This year will also see the band tour South and North America as well as selected summer festivals, while they keep writing material for their 9th album. Head over to www.katatonia.com to keep up with all the latest news.

What would be better: winning a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory or winning a builder’s proof of the Seymour Duncan 35 Limited Edition Guitar?

To help you answer this question, Seymour Duncan’s Frank Falbo offers a grand tour of the masterfully crafted Seymour Duncan 35, from the Zehpyr Silver pickups to the 35,000-year-old mastodon ivory nut. Check out the video to find out more!

Production of the Seymour Duncan 35 is strictly limited to 35 numbered copies, but you can win the builder’s proof of this beautiful instrument. Just click here and answer 3 quick questions:

Always in pursuit of the pursuers of tone, Premier Guitar dispatched Jason Shadrick to do a Rig Rundown video with fusion great John McLaughlin. Roughly four minutes into the video, McLaughlin tells Shadrick about why he uses the Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Classic—instead of an amp. “We want to give the audience the best sound possible,” he says. “They need not just good music, they need good sound.”
“I’ve experimented over the years with a number of pedals,” he continues. “Just before this tour I picked up the Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Classic. I really like it. It’s got those military spec tubes, and I like what it does to the high end.” For more insight, check out the video on Premier Guitar’s YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/premierguitar#p/u/1/MXdKgGS8hGM

It was another exciting day here at the Seymour Duncan NAMM booth. We had a terrific turnout today with lots of musicians stopping by to hobnob with fans and get a close look at the Seymour Duncan 35 guitar.

Guitar god Yngwie Malmsteen signing at the Seymour Duncan.

George Lynch of Lynch

Mob and Alex Skolnick of Testament ready to rock.

Drowning Pool’s C.J.

Pierce and Fear Factory’s Dino Cazares.

C.J. and Dino signing at the Seymour Duncan booth signing autographs and shaking hands at the Custom Shop desk.

An impromptu

performance by Eric Gales captivated everyone around the stage.

What’s on the menu?

Every guitar in the booth is described on nearby menus.

First look at the

Seymour Duncan 35 limited edition guitar. Don’t forget to take the really short survey HERE. We’re giving this baby away!
Stompbox central: The

pedal station is wired up for headphone tone tasting.

R.J. (Check out his band here), Dewi, Patricia and Alison modeling Seymour Duncan’s new styles available in 2011.

The Seymour Duncan Artist Party.

People often come up and tell us about how much Seymour Duncan means to them or  talk about their first significant pickup revelation. We often wish we had a camera rolling. So, to help kick off our 35th Anniversary year, we’re capturing videos of Seymour Duncan Stories, beginning at NAMM 2011. Here’s bassist Kevin “Brandino” Brandon, talking about his encounter with Seymour in 1975. For more Seymour Duncan Stories, visit our YouTube channel.

Let us know if you would like to submit your own Seymour Duncan story.

NAMM DAY 2 – We had an exciting day of appearances, autographs, jam sessions, product demos, and more!  Check out our photos with appearances from: Seymour W. Duncan, Mick Thomson, Tim Mahoney, Bootsy Collins, Randy Buchman, Steve Bailey, Alex Lora, Cesar Lopez, and Luis Miguel.

Slipknot’s Mick Thomson with Seymour: Two monstrous giants of tone!

Our Latin artist panel: Fidel Arreygue, Alex Lora (El Tri), Cesar “El Vampiro” Lopez, Luis Miguel bassist Lalo Carrillo with Seymour.

El Vampiro and Alex show their love for Custom Shop manager Maricela “MJ” Juarez.

Alex Lora, borrowing MJ’s glasses, jammed on stage for an hour with a boisterous crowd singing along.

Aint seen n-n-n-nothin yet: Seymour with Bachman & Turner’s Randy Bachman.

311’s Tim Mahoney with Seymour Duncan tech guru and artist relations swami Brandon Ficquette.

Steve Bailey, Seymour, and Bootsy, baby! (And who’s that in the picture on the right? A very young Seymour with Jimi Hendrix!)


Seymour with leather designer Dru WhiteFeather and Fender master builder John Cruz.
Stay tuned for more!

Also, don’t forget to enter to win the Seymour Duncan 35 Guitar!!!
ENTER TO WIN HERE
Check out today’s artist signings here.

The Seymour Duncan 35–the limited edition guitar inspired by Seymour’s “TeleGib” and the company’s 35th Anniversary–comes with two sets of very special pickups: The recreation of the original “TeleGib” pickups, known as the Custom Shop JB/Jazz Concept Set, and a modern exotic set of Seymour Duncan Zephyr™ Silver premium pickups.

Seymour Duncan’s new Custom Shop JB & Jazz “Concept” Humbuckers are installed in the guitar. The “Concept” pickups are reproductions of the prototype pickups Seymour wound for Jeff Beck’s guitar, well before there was a Seymour Duncan Company. These pickups later became the basis for further development of the Seymour Duncan JB & Jazz production models, after the formation of the company.

In the early ’70s, Seymour lived in London creating guitar pickups for Britain’s top players. His masterpiece, though, was a guitar he built for Jeff Beck, affectionately known as the “TeleGib.” Seymour matched a Fender Telecaster®—that’s the “Tele®”—with hot-rodded Gibson-style humbuckers—that’s the “Gib.” The pickups themselves represented a new era of advanced guitar sound, pairing a high-output bridge pickup with highly resonant harmonics and a smooth, moderate output neck pickup.

This is the concept that would later serve as the basis of the JB Model™—the world’s most popular humbucker— and its frequent match, the Jazz Model™. In honor of our 35th Anniversary, the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop is proud to offer the JB/Jazz Concept set. This pickup pair is precisely like the pickups in the original “TeleGib,” with a long-legged bottom plate, single-conductor wire, and Alnico-2 magnets in the neck pickup, and Alnico-5 in the bridge.

Additionally, a set of Seymour Duncan Zephyr™ Silver premium pickups will be supplied in the case. The guitar is equipped with Seymour Duncan’s Liberator™ Quick Pickup Change System for easy swapping of both sets of pickups. Whether with vintage-style pickups or new tone-drenched silver, players will find the sound of the Seymour Duncan 35 to be extraordinary. The Zephyr Silver pickups combine silver wire, bi-metallic pole pieces, nylon glass fiberfill bobbins and cryogenic treatment for a wide-open, tone-dense, explosively dynamic sound and super-responsive feel. The installed Liberator volume potentiometer is 250kΩ. A spare control plate with a 500kΩ Liberator volume potentiometer is included in the supplied tweed case.

For your chance to win the limited edition Seymour Duncan 35 with Custom Shop JB & Jazz “Concept” Pickups installed and an additional set of Seymour Duncan Zephyr™ Silver premium pickups included, ENTER HERE!!!

WIN! THE SEYMOUR DUNCAN 35 LIMITED EDITION GUITAR
The Seymour Duncan 35 is a precision-crafted instrument inspired by Seymour’s personal guitar, a refinement of the celebrated instrument, affectionately known as the “TeleGib,” which he built for Jeff Beck while living in London in the early 1970s.
Production of the Seymour Duncan 35 is strictly limited to 35 numbered pieces.
The prize winner will win an unnumbered builder’s proof of the Seymour Duncan 35.
Just take the survey to enter!
If you are NAMM, come visit us to see our swanky Seymour Duncan booth – Booth 5561 Hall B! It’s reminiscent of a nightclub from the classic era of Rock and Roll! You can enter the contest there too.

Check out this beauty:
Contest Rules

At Seymour Duncan, our motto is “Own Your Tone.” That’s the reason we have such a vast range of pickup models that directly retrofit an incredibly wide variety of guitars. And that’s why we addressed a need amongst guitarists by offering a brand new pickup for 2011.

The Gibson® Nighthawk™ was first introduced in 1993. It was a very forward-thinking guitar at the time, essentially a combination of an SG’s® lower bout and thinner body with a Les Paul’s® upper bout, but with a unique pickup combination and 25 ½” scale. The unique pickup configuration included Gibson’s NHT bridge position humbucker, mounted on a slant, together with a single coil middle pickup and a mini-humbucker in the neck position. Historically, guitarists had very few, if any, options when it came to replacement pickups for the Nighthawk’s distinctive and unique “Slant NHT” humbucker.

Now, 18 years later, guitarists who originally dismissed the Nighthawk as too “different” recognize what a great guitar it really was and is. That’s why Gibson’s Epiphone® division is reissuing the Nighthawk Custom Reissue. One thing that’s different in 2011 is now, for the first time, Seymour Duncan® is offering replacement, after-market pickups for Epiphone’s new Nighthawk. Seymour Duncan’s after-market replacement pickups for the Nighthawk bridge position humbucker will come in two voicings.

The ’59 Model™ is Seymour Duncan’s take on the legendary “Patent Applied For” humbucker. The output is vintage (8.13K Ohms D.C. Resistance) because its coils are wound with Plain Enamel wire on a vintage Leesona Model 102 winding machine. The tone is clear and crystalline and the ’59 is great for all music styles.

The JB Model™ is the world’s most popular hot-rodded humbucker. Its powerful coil windings (16.4K Ohms D.C. Resistance) give it loads of power and make it a big step up from the ’59 in terms of output. But unlike other high-output humbuckers, the JB retains its punchy upper-midrange detail. It’s applicable for heavier music styles

Epiphone’s Nighthawk Custom Reissue will make its debut at the 2011 Winter NAMM show. Seymour Duncan’s after-replacement pickups will follow shortly thereafter in March 2011. Now, if you’re a Nighthawk owner, you too can own your tone.

Gibson, Epiphone, Les Paul and SG are registered trademarks of Gibson USA with which Seymour Duncan is not affiliated.