Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

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Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

I'll be honest, this is the VERY first time I've ever ordered anything from Musician's Friend. First time, ever. If Lew or Blackrose had them, I would have bought them from one of them. Honestly, I don't care.....the vast majority of what I buy is used.

What I do care about is what handwound Seths are gonna sound like, straight from veteran Maricela Juarez's hands to my guitar. I'm still confused about what magnet is in them, but Seymour wouldn't have gone to the trouble to engrave them if they sucked. Bottom line. I don't hear any complaints about other Custom Shop pickups handwound by MJ, so I'll base what guitar they end up in by the way they sound, and by what mystery magnet they've been supplied with. ??? Kinda makes the purchase funner.....kinda like pulling the handle at Vegas!!! he he he

The only difference is I don't lose the $300.....I end up with Custom Shop Seths! LOL
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

I ordered the 50th Annie pups for one reason only - they were hand wound by Seymour hisself (I could've cared less what mags were used or what's engraved on the covers). That's what the promo's at Duncan-Land and MF-Land honked to the world - "hand wound by Seymour". Bogus. What a sham, er, shame.

I'm certainly not accepting receipt of these pickups. This is a very bad thing and a blight on Seymour Duncan, IMO. Shame on you posers at Seymour Duncan! I doubt it was deception, but at the very least it's piss-poor super-sloppy advertising/marketing.

I will always like some of Dunc's offerings - but for the most part I'll stick with Rio Grande pickups ... they have a very tasty selection of bumhuckers and true single coils, and they all satisfy my sonic tastes. YMMV.
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

Fret Tech said:
I ordered the 50th Annie pups for one reason only - they were hand wound by Seymour hisself (I could've cared less what mags were used or what's engraved on the covers). That's what the promo's at Duncan-Land and MF-Land honked to the world - "hand wound by Seymour". Bogus. What a sham, er, shame.

I'm certainly not accepting receipt of these pickups. This is a very bad thing and a blight on Seymour Duncan, IMO. Shame on you posers at Seymour Duncan! I doubt it was deception, but at the very least it's piss-poor super-sloppy advertising/marketing.

I will always like some of Dunc's offerings - but for the most part I'll stick with Rio Grande pickups ... they have a very tasty selection of bumhuckers and true single coils, and they all satisfy my sonic tastes. YMMV.

+1

When that package shows up I'm telling them return to sender! No way I'm even gonna pay the return shipping costs for this major FU.

I'm with Gary on this one...A2 mags are totally unusable for modern sounding rock.

Not to mention they were supposed to have been made by Seymour himself :duh: :smack:
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

TaZMaNiO said:
+1
I'm with Gary on this one...A2 mags are totally unusable for modern sounding rock.

Tell that to the A2 JB I have in my guitar, it seems to do just fine ;)
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

Hey all,

Thanks for all the posts about the 50th Ann. humbucker sets. It appears that I need to get some clarity for everyone here, including myself. This project was planned concurrent with our winter NAMM show in the heart of our busiest time of the year. I'm not excusing the confusion, just trying to shed light on the pace around here at that time of year (Jan/Feb each year).

Please note that I was out on the road with Seymour for since last Wednesday and tommorow I'll be back in the office. At that time I'll be able to assemble the team, analyze what happened, and report back to this post.

I only wanted to remind everyone that the genesis of this project was a milestone dedication, not a money grubbing fest. I'm sorry that some seem so disapppointed.

Please allow me to get the team together, get good information, and get back to all of you.

Thanks again for all the feedback - postive or negative it's great to hear.

Regards,

Billy Gill
Sales Manager
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

nuntius said:
Tell that to the A2 JB I have in my guitar, it seems to do just fine ;)

OK dump the Hi-output JB & switch to a medium output PU with an unpotted A2 mag, then come back & tell me how well it works! :laugh2:

BTW, nice CYA from the sales dept. there too! :fing25:
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

Anyone who has never made a mistake raise their hands now please.















Exactly. No need to bash on Billy, Seymour, Evan or anyone else. Truth be told, I'd bet money that Musicians Friend botched up the text in order to get the page up quickly.

The bottom line is these pickups are handwound in the Duncan Custom Shop either by MJ or Seymour, since they are the only ones working custom shop orders. I have several custom shop pups, and have never been dissapointed.
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

TaZMaNiO said:
OK dump the Hi-output JB & switch to a medium output PU with an unpotted A2 mag, then come back & tell me how well it works! :laugh2:

:rolleyes:

Nah, you're alright mate. I think I quite like my pup where it is now thanks.
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

Jeff_H said:
Exactly. No need to bash on Billy, Seymour, Evan or anyone else. Truth be told, I'd bet money that Musicians Friend botched up the text in order to get the page up quickly.

The bottom line is these pickups are handwound in the Duncan Custom Shop either by MJ or Seymour, since they are the only ones working custom shop orders. I have several custom shop pups, and have never been dissapointed.
what I believe (for what its worth)
MF aproaches duncan about a set of pups. duncan says it's the anniversary of the bucker so why not make a special set of that.
i doubt duncan (company) said seymour will do them alone. i believe they said it will be a custom shop item, hand engraved by seymour. MF ****s up the description in order to boost the sales. about the magnet description.. i doubt they even know the diference

about the screw ups, i'd blame MF and not duncan


and Jeff, glad to see you back on board :fing2:
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

I'll have my pickups Wednesday, so I'll spend some time hearing them that night.

However, this thread has been going on for 2 weeks, and we still don't know what magnets are in the dang things. Can someone give us a simple answer? A5 or A2????
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

Jeff_H said:
...Truth be told, I'd bet money that Musicians Friend botched up the text in order to get the page up quickly...

yeah. MF probably outsourced the web page article to some no name outfit in India and some dude couldn't quite read English well enough.
 
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Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

MrHeavyMetal said:
yeah. MF probably outsourced the web page article to some no name outfit in India and some dude couldn't quite well read English well enough.

What's really funny is I didn't even read the Musician's Fraud website, I went by what the SD salesguy wrote on this thread, and it appears even more bogus than the MF info! :blackeye:
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

I think it's a little unfair to blame Duncan when it seems as though MF are the ones who screwed up. But I do think Duncan should've had someone from the company look over the MF description to make sure it was accurate. I also think it would be nice if we could get a final answer as to whether they're A2 or A5? That's not exactly a minor feature, it changes the whole tone of the pickup.

Ryan
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

rspst14 said:
I think it's a little unfair to blame Duncan when it seems as though MF are the ones who screwed up. But I do think Duncan should've had someone from the company look over the MF description to make sure it was accurate. I also think it would be nice if we could get a final answer as to whether they're A2 or A5? That's not exactly a minor feature, it changes the whole tone of the pickup.

Ryan

Another that didn't read the Saledudes pitch on page#1 of this thread. OK, since some of you guys seem too lazy to read the whole thread, here's the pitch:

Sales Manager said:
I understand and appreciate all the feedback and opinions regarding the Limited Edition Humbucker Sets that we are offering in conjunction with Musician's Friend.

This limited edition (300) series is 100% made in our Custom Shop by hand, by Seymour. We were approached by our contacts at Musician's Friend about commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the humbucker - which for those of you not there was the theme at our booth at the winter NAMM show in Anaheim.

In order to make this series, have them sport the embossed covers (again, 100% engraved by Seymour), AND still be affordable to the end users we needed a certain quantity to build all at once. Trust me when I say that buying these one-off from the Custom Shop would be significantly more expensive. Regardless of everyone's personal opinion of Musician's Friend, this is an economic reality. The spirit in which these came to be was certainly not one of disenfranchising dealers outside of Musician's Friend.
Frankly, if it wasn't for Musician's Friend, the series wouldn't exist at the current price point. I'm sure there are some people who would rather have that, but I hope there's many more that would rather seen them around.

You're right about the typo. These pickups are Alnico V, not Alnico II. When Seymour came up with the design, he wanted to base the models on the original Gibson prototypes - a set of which he owns. The set that he owns has Alnco V magnets. We also wanted a departure from our already offered Seth Lover series. Different is good.

Under the hood, the attention to detail with the wooden spacers, butyrate bobbins are all reminiscent of the Seth Lover series, but the Alnico V magnets give these limited edition sets a bit more bite.

For those of you who have had personal interactions with Seymour over the years, you may know that he is a major guitar historian and collector of so many interesting things.

He was personally excited to be able to commemorate this milestone, and again the fact remains that if it wasn't for Musician's Friend having the ability to acquire the quantity necessary to give birth to this series, then it wouldn't be here for us to enjoy. In the end, these are really a functional, fun dedication and commemoration.

It's unfortunate that not everyone can be happy with the way these needed to come into the world, but again I understand that we are all entitled to our opinion with regard to from whom we buy.

Billy Gill
Sales Manager, Seymour Duncan Pickups
 
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Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

If I wasn't so broke trying to get my own business started up (making pickups and modding\building pedals), I'd jump at the oppritunity. I would take my Dremel to the solders on the covers immediately because I don't like how they look not to mention I hate how covered pups sound. I wouldn't actually buy it for the sake of commorating Duncan's Anniversery, but to get a good deal on some pups that I'm sure Seymour spent a lot of labour on.

Of course, "Bill Lawrence" (Willi Stich) winds his pups himself which aren't half-bad and charges a third of that for humbuckers. Duncan's the bigger (much, much bigger!) company and has a more recognizable name. It also sucks having to wait 6 to 8 weeks for the things!
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

Maybe they are just like the ones from the 50's, some A2, some A5. ;)

Are we still talking about this? haha!
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

I'm hoping that at some point, this thread will morph into what these pups actually sound like.

Inquiring minds want to know. ;)
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

Geez ....

1. I would NEVER believe anything that MF sez.

2. I bought into these pups solely because Sales Manager (from Duncan) said the pups were wound by hand, by Seymour hisself. I took his statement in good faith and immediately pulled the trigger on a set of these pups.

I suspect most of you folks will agree with the above ... and so, this IS a Seymour Duncan Company problem, not an MF problem - at least for us suckers.

Rob DiStefano - Fret Tech.
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

I would imagine, that anyone who bought these on the basis of them being wound by Seymour, can simply get a full refund. That will leave more for those that are interested in how they sound.

And no sarcasm was meant there. Just being pragmatic. :)
 
Re: Limited edition duncans at musicians enemy!!

Are pickups hand wound by Seymour that impressive/rare/collectable? I have 2 Jazzmaster Antiquities that cost $65 each that were wound by the man himself, and MF didn;t get any of my money.
 
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