Learn more about the history of Seymour Duncan
Seymour Duncan is an American company known for manufacturing pickups for electric guitars and electric basses. They also manufacture effects pedals designed and assembled in the United States.
Duncan's interest in guitars was sparked at a young age by a chance occurrence. After lending his guitar to a friend, who accidentally broke a pickup, Seymour decided to try rewinding it by using a turntable to hold the pickup. He rotated it while holding a spool of copper wire that was rewinding around the magnet.
It was at this point, noticing a change for the better in the pickup's sound, that he decided to learn more about how pickups worked.
Seymour Duncan spent some time working with different guitars until he got a job at the Fender Soundhouse in London. There he worked with guitars and pickups of renowned artists such as Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.
In 1978, after meeting Cathy Carter, he founded his own company, offering his own pickups for guitars such as Stratocaster, Telecaster.
How to choose the right pickups for your guitar?
Electric guitar pickups are one of the elements that most influence the sound produced by the instrument. Therefore, the purchase decision will depend on the sound you want to achieve.
From the creation of the pickups until now, more than a hundred years have passed. The market has been expanding and different types of pickups have been appearing, each with its own characteristics.
In general, the two most popular types of pickups are:
- Single coils or single winding pickups: These are pickups formed by a copper wire that wraps around the six cylinders associated with each of the guitar strings. Given their sensitivity to high frequencies, single coils produce a clear, bright and defined sound.
- Humbuckers or double coil pickups: It is the model manufactured in the 50's by Seth Lover for the legendary Gibson company.
They eliminated the hum thanks to a phase cancellation, increased the gain with respect to the single coil and achieved a warmer and deeper sound, since they focus on the mid tones.
- P-90 pickups: Although single coils and humbuckers are the best known pickups, there are also other pickups that can give you a good result, such as the P-90 pickups. Also created by Gibson, they consist of a single coil pickup with a humbucker look.
- Jazzmaster pickups: Another type of pickups, with a deeper tone and aesthetically very similar to the P-90, are the Jazzmaster. These do not have a magnet under the winding, which allows for a cleaner sound.
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