Seymour Duncan
Seymour Duncan is an American company that produces pickups for electric string instruments and guitar effects pedals . The company was named after the founder and company director Seymour W. Duncan . The company is based in Santa Barbara , USA.
History and company
The guitarist and technician Seymour W. Duncan presented at the beginning of 1960 its first pickup ago after a gig at the Bridge Pickup his Fender Telecaster failed and Duncan had no way to obtain a replacement. After Duncan had gained initial experience in building and repairing pickups, the musician and inventor Les Paul advised him to go to Great Britain. Duncan then worked at the Fender Soundhouse in London, where he repaired instruments from artists such as Jimmy Page , George Harrison , Eric Clapton , Pete Townshend , Jimi Hendrix and Peter Frampton . During this time Duncan also met guitarist Jeff Beck , who later was one of the first to receive a special pickup from Duncan. Back in the USA, Duncan made contact with Leo Fender , Les Paul and Seth Lover, the inventor of the Gibson humbucker . In 1978 Duncan founded the company "Seymour Duncan" together with Cathy Carter Duncan and began to manufacture their own pickups.
Today, Seymour Duncan's product range includes over 100 different pickups for electric string instruments, with the company's focus being on the manufacture and development of pickups for electric guitars . The company sells around 70% of its production as exchange pickups to guitarists and workshops. The remaining 30% is obtained from instrument manufacturers who equip their guitars with Seymour Duncan pickups at the factory. Half of the production is sold in the USA; the largest export market is Japan followed by Canada , Great Britain and Germany .
Products
Seymour Duncan manufactures pickups for string instruments, especially for electric guitars. Pickups for electric basses , acoustic guitars , mandolins , banjos and other instruments are also available. Seymour Duncan manufactures special pickups for jazz guitars under the name "Benedetto". The "Duncan Designed" label is used to designate pickups that are manufactured by external companies in Asia according to Duncan's specifications .
guitar
Seymour Duncan produces a large number of pickups for electric guitars, with the emphasis on the common formats of the companies Fender ( single coils in the style of the Fender Stratocaster or Fender Telecaster ) and Gibson (humbuckers in the style of the Gibson Les Paul , Gibson SG etc. ) lies. The range of available pickups varies with the individual models from faithful reproductions of pickups of old electric guitars ( "vintage" ) to custom-made products that are designed for specific purposes and sound ideas (e.g. high distortion, heavy use of the tremolo , 7- stringed guitars etc.) are optimized. In the "Antiquity" series, the pickups are artificially aged with scratches and rust film in order to reproduce the appearance of old pickups in addition to the sound. The "Hot Rails" are powerful humbuckers that are only the size of Fender single coils. In contrast, the "Phat Cat" models are single coils the size of Gibson humbuckers. The "Woody" is a pickup for acoustic guitars that is clamped under the strings in the sound hole and can be removed again after playing.
bass
The pickups for bass are based on the formats of the manufacturers Fender, Rickenbacker and Music Man . Similar to the guitars, the range offered also extends from the reproduction of old original cartridges to special new developments, some of which have active electronics.
Other instruments
For acoustic instruments such as mandolin, banjo, etc. Seymour Duncan offers contact pickups called "SoundSpot" . These work on the piezoelectric principle , according to which a weak electrical current is generated by pressure fluctuations. Accordingly, the "SoundSpot" pickups are usually installed in the instrument at places where the greatest vibrations occur (e.g. bridge or tailpiece).
Seymour Duncan in music
Seymour Duncan's pickups quickly gained a reputation among musicians for being good-sounding alternatives to the original pickups for their instruments. In particular, the ability to optimize the sound of the instrument by using special pickups made the pickups popular with musicians. In return, Seymour Duncan quickly began making pickups for well-known guitarists. One of the first pickups for Jeff Beck was the JB humbucker for jazz and blues, which can be heard on the guitarist's early albums. The Dimebucker was developed in collaboration with the heavy metal guitarist Dimebag Darrell (including Pantera , Damageplan ). This pickup is a humbucker optimized for strongly distorted sounds, which has two continuous blades instead of individual magnets. The Pearly Gates humbucker was developed for Billy Gibbons ( ZZ Top ) ; a copy of the pickups Gibbons used on his favorite guitar. The "lil 'screamin' demon" (a humbucker in single coil format) was developed for hard rock guitarist George Lynch so that he could create the dense sound of Gibson humbuckers without having to modify his old Stratocaster.
Other artists who use Seymour Duncan pickups include: a. Slash and Duff McKagan (both including Guns n 'Roses , Velvet Revolver ), Mark Hoppus ( blink-182 , +44 ), Tom DeLonge (blink-182), Tom Hamilton ( Aerosmith ), Steve Harris ( Iron Maiden ) and Jennifer Batten (including Jeff Beck , Michael Jackson ), Michael Amott ( Arch Enemy ), Mick Thomson ( Slipknot ), Billie Joe Armstrong ( Green Day ), Yngwie Malmsteen .
Web links
- Official website (English)
- Guitar & Bass : From Bar Musician to Pickup King: The Duncan Story , accessed on March 29, 2020.
- Seymour Duncan: Who We Are , in: youtube, October 11, 2013, accessed April 2, 2020.