Seymour Duncan
Seymour Duncan is a U.S. company that manufactures pickups for electric stringed instruments. The company was renamed after the founder and company directors Seymour W. Duncan. The company is headquartered Santa Barbara in the United States.
History and company
The guitarist and technicians Seymour W. Duncan presented at the beginning of 1960 and produces its first pickup after with a performance by the bridge pickup of his Fender Telecaster failed and Duncan had no way to obtain a replacement. After Duncan had gained some experience in the construction and repair of pickups, he got by musician and inventor Les Paul the Council to go to Britain. Duncan worked on it in the Fender Soundhouse in London, where he repaired instruments by 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 was later one of the first special pickups from Duncan. Back in the USA tied Duncan contacts with Leo Fender, Les Paul and Seth Lover, the inventor of the Gibson humbucker. In 1978, Duncan founded together with Cathy Carter Duncan, the company " Seymour Duncan " and began making their own pickups.
Today, the product range of the company includes more than 100 different Seymour Duncan pickups for electric stringed instruments, the company's focus is on the production and development of pickups for electric guitars. The company sells about 70 % of its production as Austauschtonabnehmer to guitarists and workshops. The remaining 30% are obtained from instrument manufacturers that equip their guitars from the factory with Seymour Duncan pickups. Half of the production is sold here in the U.S.; the largest export market is Japan, followed by Canada, the UK and Germany.
Products
Seymour Duncan makes pickups for stringed instruments, manufactures specially designed for electric guitars. In addition, pickups for basses, acoustic guitars, mandolins, banjos and other instruments are available. Under the name " Benedetto " is Seymour Duncan manufactures special pickups for jazz guitars. With the label " Duncan Designed" pickups are called, which are prepared by Duncan requirements of foreign companies in Asia.
Guitar
Seymour Duncan manufactures a large number of pickups for electric guitars, focusing on the major building formats the company Fender ( single coils in the style of the Fender Stratocaster and Fender Telecaster ) and Gibson ( humbucker in the style of the Gibson Les Paul, Gibson SG, etc. ) is. The range of pickups available varies between the individual models of faithful reproduction of pickups of old electric guitars ( "Vintage" ), to custom-made, high for certain purposes and ideas of sound (eg distortion, heavy use of the tremolo, 7 -string guitars etc. ) are optimized. In the "Antiquity " series pickups are artificially aged with scratches and rust to reproduce by the sound and the look of old pickups. The " Hot Rails " are powerful humbucker, they have only the size of Fender single coils. In contrast, the " Phat Cat " models Singlecoils in the size of Gibson humbuckers. With the " Woody" a pickup for acoustic guitars is offered, which is clamped under the strings inside the soundhole, and can be removed after the Games.
Bass
The pickups for basses are based on the building formats the manufacturer Fender, Rickenbacker, and Music Man. Similar to the guitars, the range of services offered ranges also from reproducing old original buyer to specific new developments, some of which have an active electronics.
Other instruments
For acoustic instruments such as mandolin, banjo, etc. Seymour Duncan offers contact pick-up with the name "Sound Spot ". They operate according to the piezoelectric principle that a weak electric current generated by pressure variations. According to the "Sound Spot " pickups are usually mounted in the instrument in places where the largest oscillations occur (eg web or tailpiece ).
Seymour Duncan in music
The pickups by Seymour Duncan stood in musicians quickly earned a reputation for its good-sounding alternatives to the original purchasers of their instruments. In particular, the possibility to optimize the instrument by the use of special pickups in the sound on your needs, the pickups made popular with musicians. In turn, Seymour Duncan quickly began to produce pickups for well-known guitarists. As one of the first pickup of the JB humbucker was created for Jeff Beck, which can be heard on the early albums of the guitarist. The Dimebucker was developed in cooperation with the heavy metal guitarist Dimebag Darrell (including Pantera, Damageplan ). This pickup is optimized for heavily distorted sounds humbucker has two through blades instead of individual magnets. For Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top) The Pearly Gates humbucker was developed; a copy of the pickup that uses Gibbons on his favorite guitar. The "lil ' screamin ' demon ' ( a humbucker in single coil format ) was developed for the hard rock guitarist George Lynch, so that it can generate the dense sound of Gibson humbuckers, without having to modify his old Stratocaster.
Other artists use, the pickups from Seymour Duncan include Slash and Duff McKagan (both inter alia, 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 ), Billie Joe Armstrong ( Green Day ), Yngwie Malmsteen.