User Group Day - Accounts, Impressions and Photos

[ErikH]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

Looks like it was a great time. I wish I could have went. Seeing Warren there is awesome. I would have been starstruck for a little bit. He's one of my guitar heroes.

[Aceman]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

The important thing was that I got my pickup back! I'll post the whole story tonight.

See you at 11pm Eastern!!!! The awesome of this event is just not wearing off.

[Got_tone?]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

^ Now, that's what I'm talking about!

[Great_Kazoo]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

UGD was great this time around, even better than I thought it would be! Here's
a few shots I took--my camera was acting up, so probably every third photo
got messed up.

Excited crowd of SD Forum members waiting to the event to start:





Evan greeting the members and laying out the day's events:



Seymour welcoming the Forum members and looking good in his SD apron!



Since we got to pick and the choose each session and its schedule, I started
with the factory tour with Evan:



One of the custom winding areas:



5 minutes into the tour, I was paged to go to the Custom Shop to meet with MJ!



I had opted to wind my own SPB-3 (Quarter Pound for P-Bass) pickup. I didn't get to
wind my own last time, so this was a pretty cool experience! MJ walked me through
the process on this machine in the Custom Shop:



After I completed the winding and soldering phases, I rejoined the tour in progress
while MJ did the wax potting of my SPB-3:



I returned to the factory tour, with Evan describing each of the processes in creating
a pickup. I didn't get a lot of pics for this, hopefully someone else will have some to post:









Closer view of the wax potting machine:





A batch of Quarter Pounders ready for the next phase:



P-Bass pickups being wound simultaneously on a normal production winder:





One of the things set up for us was the chance to try out different pickups. This
arrangement was set up outside for this purpose:







Lunch was set up outside in the basketball court next to the factory:



I spotted this gentleman talking to Evan when I was getting my drink (Warren DeMartini, in case you didn't know!):



We also had an opportunity to purchase some b-stock pedals and lots of different pickups!









Dinner and jam down by the ocean in downtown Santa Barbara:





Our intinerary include some time to drink and mingle before we started eating. Here's Aceman and Seymour:



MikeRocker and more Forum members (sorry, I missed/forgot a LOT of people's names! :



The awesome french fries everyone's been praising in this thread (I agree,
they were unusually delicious) came from this truck, along with the rest of
our food (bahn mi tacos and sandwiches, etc.)!



After dinner, the drums were brought in and setup for the jam:



Awesome rhythm section of Donna Eveland (drums) and Jill Avery (bass):



Some familiar Forum members enjoying the festivities:

Fabian on the left,and again, I apologize for not knowing the gentleman on the right:



Anabel, Gearjoneser (Joe) and Robert the left handed bass player:



Robert played bass and sang a few tunes as well!

Dirtbagg (Dave) tuning up before joining the jam:



Ronny North (left) with another gentleman I didn't meet, but had a great voice!



Ronny's guitar from Ed Roman's:



MJ enjoying the music and looking muy linda:



Duncan VP of Engineering Kevin Beller on the right—he sold me my first bass
30 years ago!



When the lights were turned down during the jam, none of my shots were coming
up--here's a couple that are closer to legible.

Seymour with his Schecter guitar (with Duncan pickups, of course):



Joe Gore (former Senior Editor at Guitar Player magazine) jamming onstage with Kat Dyson (not shown):



The jam with Joe Gore was one of the highlights for me--unique playing and sound! I don't know
what the tune was, but in the middle of it, he and Kat swapped instruments so that she could
play guitar and Joe could play bass!

Warren and Seymour:




This was another memorable event from a great company for their many "fans"--can't really
call them customers, as it goes a lot deeper than that. Besides the products, the people that
make up Seymour Duncan the company are what make it special--and are an awesome
example of what happens when a company consistently exceeds their customers' expectations!

Thanks again to Seymour, Cathy, Evan, Dewi, Saulina, Kevin, Frank, MJ and everyone else for putting
this together!

[Gearjoneser]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

Ladies & gents, you would be hard pressed to meet a nicer bunch of folks. This is truly a one of a kind company. You would have to see it to believe it. Extremely high quality products made by people who really care about what goes out to the consumer. This is what American manufacturing was all about when Detroit was putting out the 55 Chevys, Cadillacs and T-birds that became classics "back in the day". You can still find it here in Santa Barbara at Seymour Duncan. That's what I got out of the visit.

That's the truth. As a matter of fact, when I was at the Saturday picnic, there was a vintage late 50's Cadillac in metallic light blue in the lot, which I should have photographed.....killer car! Does anyone know who's it was?

[Gearjoneser]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

Here's a bunch of pics from my wife's phone. The quality is grainy, but on some I kinda like that effect.



Warren Demartini & Seymour

GJ & Evan Skopp

GJ & Evan's Crazy Heart Gretsch

[speed2dirt]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

Production Floor:

[JOLLY]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

Aceman just told me an interesting story about his UGD pickup.....lol

[TheLivingDead]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

Super cool stories. I'm friggin' level 9 jelly here.

Aceman, sleep with one eye open. The EVH folks that perpetuate the conspiracies are gonna whisk you away tonight. WE CAN'T BE HAVING DEFINITIVE PROOF LIKE THAT COME ON.

[Aceman]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

Excuse me - as soon as I Fly from LA to Tampa - I'll have some pics up!

[Got_tone?]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

42 posts and only two of them have pics? Come on guys, I'm still kicking myself for not being able to make it. I would've had MJ wind me a s deco patb and have Seymour's sig on it.

[Aceman]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

Ladies & gents, you would be hard pressed to meet a nicer bunch of folks. This is truly a one of a kind company. You would have to see it to believe it. Extremely high quality products made by people who really care about what goes out to the consumer. This is what American manufacturing was all about when Detroit was putting out the 55 Chevys, Cadillacs and T-birds that became classics "back in the day". You can still find it here in Santa Barbara at Seymour Duncan. That's what I got out of the visit.

That was a GREAT comment and deep insight. Thanks for re-posting it. I'm a business consultant, and I'm going to be using this as an example of how it's done right, including that quote.


Gibson, of course, continues to provide excellent counter examples....

[Aceman]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

The table of Duncan Goodies was just fantastic. All kinds of neat things. I picked up a JB - which i have never owned, and for $28, I think I'll be putting a Blackout in my Vendetta project!

[Neckthruwarlock]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

Ladies & gents, you would be hard pressed to meet a nicer bunch of folks. This is truly a one of a kind company. You would have to see it to believe it. Extremely high quality products made by people who really care about what goes out to the consumer. This is what American manufacturing was all about when Detroit was putting out the 55 Chevys, Cadillacs and T-birds that became classics "back in the day". You can still find it here in Santa Barbara at Seymour Duncan. That's what I got out of the visit. Thanks big time to Seymour, Cathy, MJ, Evan, Dewi and engineering wizard Kevin Beller for making us all feel right at home. For us guitar/pedal geeks and tone hounds, this was a walk on the clouds. How cool is this? Seymour signed a set of Live Wires that I received from MJ during the visit! Unreal! Are you kidding me? They are going in my USA Handmade 2001 BC Rich ASAP. I'm pretty stoked to say the least. [IMG][/IMG]

[Aceman]

Re: User Group Day - Your Accounts, Impressions and Photos

Frank played Jesse's Girl on a pink strat and danced with me briefly. I'm not sure what that means. He was upset that I tried to lead.