New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

[PFDarkside]

http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/product-news/introducing-the-high-voltage-humbucker-set

I think the Seymour Duncan strategy is becoming extremely clear.

First realization, the majority of players want a "set" that will work well in their guitar, hence the California 50's set, Hot Rodded Humbucker Set (JB/Jazz) Mayhem set (Distortion), Everything Axe Set, etc.

Second realization, Bare Knuckle and similar companies are gaining share by simply "hinting" at an artist, song or album's tone. Seymour actually has wound pickups for a vast array of artists, and taking advantage of his notes they are recreating these pickups with both licensed names (Jimi, Slash) and implied names (Whole Lotta Humbucker, Saturday Night Special, now High Voltage...)

Nothing will stop the true tone hounds from hybridizing, mag swapping and pole piece changing, but from the "typical" player looking to upgrade pickups it's an interesting strategy.

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

Question on the price of $330 for the set. A custom shop humbucker is $160 for one so two would be $320. Just curious why it is $10 more for the set than just ordering 2 separate pickups...

Sounds like a set I'd like to try though!

 

[jeremy]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

its $300 for the set if you get open black bobbins. the aged chrome covers add $30

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

its $300 for the set if you get open black bobbins. the aged chrome covers add $30

ah! Thank you for clarifying, just saw the upcharges for covers and aging.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

technically not new, they've been available from the CS for about 6 years just under the original name.

back in ye olde days of September 2016 when I bought mine and they were still called the "AY HB Set" I learned they are very close to another set. although not the PG set. I'm not going to spill the beans on what the custom shop told me, but the point is that it seems that what a lot of the "artist" models out there are simply variations of existing products.

just some things/questions that have popped up on the forum over time: the Super V is a variant of a JB prototype. the Holdsworth is said to be 2 screw bobbins of a '59 or a JB, depending on the era. put some A3 mags in a Seth or Antiquity set and see how close you get to Bonamassa. the '59 and the PG are pretty darned similar. the Full Shred (essentially a Vivian Campbell model) is a C5 with hex poles. the DokkenBucker is akin to a JB with a normal ceramic. the Slash is a tweaked A2Pro.

looking at it like that, it might seem the strategy is to make a tweak for an artist and re-brand it. nothing that we've not seen before when looking at the variations of the Custom humbucker or the JB humbucker or the relationship between the Jazz and the A2Pro.

 

[LtKojak]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

Well, the marketing strategy of using "hinted" names suggesting certain players and/or certain songs for certain specific iconic tones, it's been used in the past by Duncan itself in a few cases, but a wholelolotta more by the competition since the beginning of time.

Why is suddenly all this animosity and frowning upon? I don't get it.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

Just an interesting observation, when everyone is making great pickups you need to differentiate yourself somehow.

 

[jeremy]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

Well, the marketing strategy of using "hinted" names suggesting certain players and/or certain songs for certain specific iconic tones, it's been used in the past by Duncan itself in a few cases, but a wholelolotta more by the competition since the beginning of time.

Why is suddenly all this animosity and frowning upon? I don't get it.

me either. marketing is huge! mr skopp was a master of it but he isnt with the company any more so whoever is in charge is plotting their own path. as long as the product is good who cares.

and as far as tweaked versions of things, without getting into if things are just tweaked versions of X, most of the market doesnt mod their pups so a magnet swap or pole piece swap is a different option for them to buy. They buy pups they think they want, pay someone to put them in, then play them, end of story. for us pup nerds on here we know we can take a sh5 custom and swap magnets or pole pieces or baseplates and change the tone, the general population has no interest in learning about the subtle differences a pole piece change can make or doing that for themselves. they want a pup to get them to sound like X. the high voltage humbucker does just that.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

Agreed Jeremy.

After a tinkering a bit with magnets and hybrids, I decided it wasn't for me. Mainly, my logic was that people that know more about pickups put things together that way for a reason.

However in most instances, the lions share of the songs we know by mists artist are done with common pickups. Putting a small tweak in there and putting a name on it is about marketing/sales. I can't knock that, as I've tried a LOT of the "artist" models that are out there. Yet, I could get most anything I need out of all my guitars with maybe two different pickup sets. Maybe three.

 

[jeremy]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

you mentioned the pearly gates and 59 before, and granted im not the typical user, but even with mag swaps i notice a significant enough difference to prefer one over the other. with the stock magnets the feel of them are very different. could i get by if i only had a 59 and no other options? of course, but im happier with the pearlys and luckily live in a world where there are in-exhaustible choices for just about everything as long as you have the coin to make it happen

 

[darthphineas]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

I never said the pearly gates and the 59 was a difference that could be tweaked by a magnet. [emoji6]

 

[JeffB]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

There is a.difference between BK making a Black Dog or Riff.Raff...."inspired by" sets...

and having a Jimmy Page set and a Jeff Beck model, then terminating a business relationship (for whatever reason) , changing the name and then having either outrught "bs" statements from the company..."jb means Jazz Blues, its not any particular artists pickup".... or in the case of the whole lotta, a whole bunch of innuendo, facts that contradict ad copy/marketing and even seymour himself tip-toeing around who for and the implied naming convention in video specifically about the set.

in the latter case, the motive seems.to be avoiding any licensing fees or the artist no longer wants to be associated.

 

[thanaton]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

Naming pickups like the "High Voltage" and the "Saturday Night Special" is just "keeping up with the Joneses" (mostly Bare Knuckle). I'd rather see innovative ideas, such as a near-PAF clone that somehow allows mag swaps without having to remove and dismantle the pickup, or maybe a near-PAF clone that somehow lets you change the bobbin-top color in a way that looks less cheesy than a bobbin topper, such removable plastic cover that fastens over a thinner layer to protect the coil. There are ways our lives as guitarists could be improved beyond releasing yet another allusion pickup.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

There is a.difference between BK making a Black Dog or Riff.Raff...."inspired by" sets...

speaking of BKP and certain associations to players. part of me thinks it's interesting that they had Page's guitar in there and got some readings off the pickups and walked away to say "this" bridge and "that" neck is a ringer for what's actually in Page's guitar. people eat up that sort of stuff.

so....

what kind of readings did they take? just some DCR? could they look and see the color of the wire? at most, maybe get some inductance and capacitance readings?

but....

it's not like 99.999% of us would ever have access to that same guitar to be able to know the difference ourselves. so people are taking that company's word for it. and I'm betting is sells product for them.

and....

it also backfired on them a little bit. because "this" bridge and "that" neck aren't the Black Dog set.

 

[JeffB]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

speaking of BKP...it also backfired on them a little bit. because "this" bridge and "that" neck aren't the Black Dog set.

And the Whole Lotta bridge wouldn't be either. The neck is pretty spot-on though.

But yeah...The Black Dog set is way out in left field, as is the Emerald set. But they are "inspired by" sets and not "clones". Some of the othersets...Mules, Riff Raff, etc..are meant to imitate specific vintage pickups.

Anyhoo..getting wayyyyyy OT.

 

[Mincer]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

I will say, I like actual names better than model numbers, like SH-4. It gives me a better idea of what I'm in for. I think having both a name and a model number is sort of confusing, unless the model number was only used internally.

 

[jeremy]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

i like model numbers for their specificity but i agree that the common names convey more and are way better for the market

 

[AniML]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

I will say, I like actual names better than model numbers, like SH-4. It gives me a better idea of what I'm in for. I think having both a name and a model number is sort of confusing, unless the model number was only used internally.

Names are easier to remember. But if Im not mistaken, the numbers are for the most part sequential, so a higher number indicates a newer pickup, with the obvious exception of the Seth SH-55 (1955 i've always assumed)

The Whole Lotta Humbucker name is something of a misnomer. From what I've gathered, most who have played them find them to capture Jimmy's later tone. I think a more traditional PAF design like a Seth is more of what Jimmy used in his earlier Les Paul days. But there is probably no name or term derived from later albums or songs that are as catchy. Achilles Last Stand? Humbucker of the gods? No and no. Whole Lotta HB is fitting enough, and SD model names for the most do a good job of paying homage to the intended artist / sound.

 

[jeremy]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

the neck nails pages lp tones but the bridge is too beefy for his later t top stuff. still, as a set they are really damn good.

 

[JeffB]

Re: New Seymour Duncan High Voltage Humbuckers

the neck nails pages lp tones but the bridge is too beefy for his later t top stuff. still, as a set they are really damn good.

Coverless bridge helps alot to get a bit more mid focused and bitey (i.e. more in the general direction of the T Top tone). I took the cover off mine recently and I have never heard such a noticable difference between the same pickup with cover on/cover off. It did have a pretty hefty amount of wax too under the cover so that probably didn't help.