Seymour Duncan

Seymour Duncan

The pickups made by the American company Seymour Duncan belongs to the best equipment money can buy in this sector at the moment. They are named after the founder and company chairman Seymour W. Duncan, the company is situated in Santa Barbara/USA. The guitarist and technician Seymour W. Duncan had started to make his first pickups in the early 60´s, after playing a gig where bridge pickup of his Fender Telecaster failed and he had no chance to replace it! After Duncan had made his first experiences with the construction and maintenance of pickups, Les Paul recommended he should go to Great Britain. Duncan then worked in the Fender sound house in London, were he would repair instruments of people like
Jimmy Page, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Jimi Hendrix und Peter Frampton. During this time Duncan met a guitar player called Jeff Beck, who later was one of the first to receive a special Duncan pickup. Once back in the USA Duncan got in touch with Leo Fender, Les Paul and Seth Lover, the inventor of the Gibson Humbucker. In 1978 Duncan and Cathy Carter founded the company „Seymour Duncan“and started making there own pickups. Soon the pickups established a reputation to be a good sounding alternative to the original pickups that came with the guitar. One of the first Duncan pickups is he JB Humbucker for Jeff Back, which can be heard on all his early works. The Dimebucker was made in collaboration with Dimebag Darrel, Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top helped developed the Pearly Gates-Humbucker and Goerge Lynch got his "lil’ screamin’ demon". Further musicians that use the pickups from Seymour Duncan : Slash and Duff McKagan (u.a. Guns N´ Roses, Velvet Revolver), Dave Mustaine (Megadeth), Tom Hamilton (Aerosmith), Steve Harris (Iron Maiden) as well as Jennifer Batten (Jeff Beck, Michael Jackson).

Today the product range of Seymour Duncan consists of over 100 different pickups, around 70 % of all items are sold to guitarists and workshops, the over 30 % go to manufacturers that fit there products with Duncan pickups . About half of the production is sold within the US. The largest export markets are Japan, followed by Canada, Great Britain and Germany. Apart from producing pickups for e guitars and basses, Seymour Duncan also has a pickup range for acoustic guitars, mandolins, banjos and other plucked instruments. Special pickups for jazz guitars are branded „ Benedetto“. There is also a range of pickups designed and made in Asia under Duncans supervision called "Duncan Designed". The design of the E-guitar pickups is optimized for Strat and Tele models from Fender and the Gibson Les Paul or the SG series. Seymore Duncan bass pickups fit guitars made by Fender, Rickenbacker und Music Man.
The pickups for acoustic instruments like Mandolines or Banjos are generally contact pickups named „SoundSpot“