What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

[jon the art guy]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

Doesn't look like he did. Why is his answer wrong again?

[Diminished Triad]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

1. Zephs
2. SSL-1
3. Jazz

[blueman335]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

Doesn't look like he did. Why is his answer wrong again?

That would be that this is not about personal favorites for limited applications, the keyword being 'versatile' defined as a great choice for a wide variety of genres and guitar designs. This 'big picture' thing really seems to be a stumbling point. I blame our educational system.

We could throw out the versatility thing and just randomly list our favorites, but that might be best left for another thread.

As a blues/classic rock guy playing Gibson-design guitars, JB's don't work for me (there's a lot of better choices); probably not used by many other guys playing those genres either. 'Vintage' tends to be big with them. Can't picture JB's being a 'go to' pickup for the country crowd, and perhaps not a first pick for the jazz crowd either. That's a lot genres to be shaky on, which tends to limit 'versatility.' Perhaps when people list their suggestions, they should give examples of genres and guitar designs that their suggested PU's work well in. It would carry more weight.

[DreX]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

It's kind of like a "battle of the bands", it's really just "battle of the turnout".

[Edgecrusher]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

That would be that this is not about personal favorites for limited applications, the keyword being 'versatile' defined as a great choice for a wide variety of genres and guitar designs. This 'big picture' thing really seems to be a stumbling point. I blame our educational system.

We could throw out the versatility thing and just randomly list our favorites, but that might be best left for another thread.

As a blues/classic rock guy playing Gibson-design guitars, JB's don't work for me (there's a lot of better choices); probably not used by many other guys playing those genres either. 'Vintage' tends to be big with them. Can't picture JB's being a 'go to' pickup for the country crowd, and perhaps not a first pick for the jazz crowd either. That's a lot genres to be shaky on, which tends to limit 'versatility.' Perhaps when people list their suggestions, they should give examples of genres and guitar designs that their suggested PU's work well in. It would carry more weight.

The very nature of versatile doesnt require something to be the "go to" option for anything. This is an incredibly fallacious argument you are making. The inherent nature of "versatile" many times dictates that something becomes a jack of all trades and a master of none.

In fact your argument on this very basis is weak. I can with a static amplifier set up take a JB and play it full up and cover any sort of metal. By turning my volume knob to 6 it will do a passable blues tone.. by turning it to 4 it will do a workable jazz or country... The very definition of versatile.

In contrast if we take your favorite vintage pickup with the same amp set up you cannot turn it up it will work good for jazz or blues and might be passable for country, early rock might be ok but everyone else will be left desiring more that they cannot achieve because the pickup cannot be turned up any louder.

The very reason the JB and super distortion exist is because your beloved vintage pups werent cutting it. The very fact that those pickups exist is a testament that vintage pups are not as versatile as you would like them to be.

Oh and sidenote... you ASSUMED that people were listing pickups just because they were their favorites I think you might be shocked to find how many of those people actually feel the very pickups you dont like are actually quite versatile hence why they listed them.

I can say for myself the JB didnt make my list because its ones of my favorites it made the list because it can cover a ton of territory that others cant.

[JHN]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

1.Custom
2.59
3.JB

[DreX]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

The very nature of versatile doesnt require something to be the "go to" option for anything. This is an incredibly fallacious argument you are making. The inherent nature of "versatile" many times dictates that something becomes a jack of all trades and a master of none.

In fact your argument on this very basis is weak. I can with a static amplifier set up take a JB and play it full up and cover any sort of metal. By turning my volume knob to 6 it will do a passable blues tone.. by turning it to 4 it will do a workable jazz or country... The very definition of versatile.

In contrast if we take your favorite vintage pickup with the same amp set up you cannot turn it up it will work good for jazz or blues and might be passable for country, early rock might be ok but everyone else will be left desiring more that they cannot achieve because the pickup cannot be turned up any louder.

The very reason the JB and super distortion exist is because your beloved vintage pups werent cutting it. The very fact that those pickups exist is a testament that vintage pups are not as versatile as you would like them to be.

I just want to say, that was an enjoyable read, even if I disagree. It's nice to see some actual discussion about what makes a pickup versatile, or not.

[Edgecrusher]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

I just want to say, that was an enjoyable read, even if I disagree. It's nice to see some actual discussion about what makes a pickup versatile, or not.

Thanks I can handle that

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

JB is very versatile and is by no means unreasonable to be put on a list like this.

[blueman335]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

The very reason the JB and super distortion exist is because your beloved vintage pups werent cutting it. The very fact that those pickups exist is a testament that vintage pups are not as versatile as you would like them to be.

The flip side of that is that many PU makers, big and small, are now producing PAF's (in the 21st century, imagine that!), because your 'beloved' JB and Super Distortion aren't 'cutting it' for a number of genres.

If only you had spent the time and effort that you have on this thread, explaining to Seymour that he's frittered away all those years creating an assortment of unnecessary winds and PU's, when all players need to do is adjust their volume controls. That time and resources could have been spent making ten times as many JB's.

[Big Flannel]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

As usual, a perfectly good thread is flushed down the toilet because people have *gasp* opinions.

Let's take a step back and look at some facts:

1) just about any pickup can get the job done. Hell, Morton used 59's with Lamb of God.

2) your amp is a much greater variable to your sound than pickups. An Invader is going to sound far different through a 5150 than a Dumble.

3) under no circumstances did Seymour use resources to develop pickups because other models weren't cutting it. He created these pickups to innovate like any good business should.

4) No one has ever listened to an album and said "Damn, that JB sounds like garbage. He should've used a Fullshred."

[LesStrat]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

My number one axe is pictured below. I play hard rock (sometimes bordering on metal), rock, light jazz, ballads, acoustic strummers (hey, I have an acoustic patch on my POD), modern pseudo-country Americana (or whatever that stuff is called), pop-influenced, jazz-based gospel, and whatever else is thrown my way or strikes my fancy.

This guitar is SUPER versatile.

Seymour knew what he was doing 40 years ago, and it STILL works today. This is a JB/Jazz set.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

[beaubrummels]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

So while we may not have identified the most versatile Duncan pickups, we may have identified who we might want to exclude from the 'Around the World in 80 Tones' project.

[Edgecrusher]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

The flip side of that is that many PU makers, big and small, are now producing PAF's (in the 21st century, imagine that!), because your 'beloved' JB and Super Distortion aren't 'cutting it' for a number of genres.

If only you had spent the time and effort that you have on this thread, explaining to Seymour that he's frittered away all those years creating an assortment of unnecessary winds and PU's, when all players need to do is adjust their volume controls. That time and resources could have been spent making ten times as many JB's.

Golf clap... at least i can give an argument showing how a JB can be versatile... you cant even come up with that and have to resort to an awkward attack of incredulity or was it an misfired attempt at a reductio ad absurdum? At the end of the day with even all of your beloved PAF's on the market they still sell more JB's. So they sure didnt reissue/recreate the PAF's because people didnt like the JB.

[blueman335]

Re: What is the MOST versatile pickup Duncan makes?

I can with a static amplifier set up take a JB and play it full up and cover any sort of metal. By turning my volume knob to 6 it will do a passable blues tone.. by turning it to 4 it will do a workable jazz or country.

Using that logic, most PU's can do a 'passable' job of most genres, by simply by adjusting the volume control. Since some metal players have used PAF's, it would seem that they're not automatically out of the running, your claims to the contrary notwithstanding. Since there's many kinds of distortion pedals and distortion built into amps, you're quite sure that all PAF's don't work for metal in any of those PU/distortion combinations?