What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

fretburner

Well-known member
Mine was my guitar hero Slash. I thought he sounded best, and so I said, "If I want to replace the pickups to my LP, it would be Seymour Duncan"... and then of course I learned about all these great artists using Seymour Duncans. So in short, it's the Duncan endorsers that wanted me to try SD pups.

Yours?
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

The SD forum did it. The only aftermarket pups I had used prior were Bill Lawrence. I was gonna try Dimarzio. But, Seymour Duncan had a better users's group forum, therefore, I went with SD Antiquities.
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

I think that my local shop had mostly seymour duncans in stock as aftermarket pups, and they recommended them to me. I then checked the SD website and quite liked their selection and specs on the pups and made my choice based on them. In the end I was convinced as the salesman let me choose between the couple of my last choices based on the SD sound clip cd they had in store. It was a very nice experience, although my details may be a bit hazy as it was so many years ago.

SD has their stuff very good in Finland. I just chose SD again today to be the pup maker of choice for my newest guitar!
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

Guitar Toad said:
The SD forum did it. The only aftermarket pups I had used prior were Bill Lawrence. I was gonna try Dimarzio. But, Seymour Duncan had a better users's group forum, therefore, I went with SD Antiquities.

Wow. The SD forum? Not even SD customer service?

I actually heard and wondered about DiMarzio's at first (because I've heard of Steve Vai before GnR), but Slash just had such a great tone!
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

I've been using Duncans for over 20 years. Back in the late 70's, or 80 maybe, I put a Dimarzion Super Distortion in my Les Paul, it was the thing to to back then, but I got tired of the weird grittiness that always seemed to be there. Seymour Duncan had a great catalog, and just seemed really convincing. The attention to detail given to the 59 model, for example. Back then, you either played stock pickups, or went the hi output way, and SD seemend to have a good middle ground there between vintage and medium hot. I like the JB specs, great harmonics and all that, got one, loved it, and have bought many other models since, customs, 59, and have loved them all. Plus they looked right as well.
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

And I just remembered an old ad in Guitar Player that made an impression on me. You had a garbage can filled with pickups with a caption that said "is this where your pickups end up?" and all the humbuckers were listed with a short description in brackets next to it. I remember the SH-5 custom had "Van Halen" next to it!!! Anyone else remember it? I should find it and scan it....Ah memories.....
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

Yeah, I've read somewhere that the Super Distortion was like the only after market pup during those years...

Awesome... keep 'em coming!
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

dimarzio had the super, super II and paf, a company called "mighty mite" had knockoffs of the super, and Bill Lawence had his blade humbuckers I think. Life was simple back then..... SD seemed to have much more nuance and subtlety, and seemed to be more what I was looking for.
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

I worked in a music store which had to lay out like $3K for Duncan merchandise in order for the store to become a (new) Duncan dealership. I bought a set of 59er HBs to help the owner begin to recoup this initial $3K hit. Ironically, it was so long ago that both pickups in this 59er set were both double creme.
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

A good friend of mine and respected musician has this custom Strat that I have lusted after for years. He never gives in to selling me the thing and he always has various SD pickups in it. Started experimenting from there and glad I did.
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

The bad pups in my Epi LP had me searching for new pups. I spoke to a tech about replacing the Epi pups with some Gibsons. The tech recommended I put SD's instead of Gibsons, JB & Jazz to be exact. After a little research and spending time on this forum, I finally went with a C5 and '59n. Its been heaven ever since...
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

it was just the p'up id heard most about. i checked the soundclips and i decided on the three that are in my strat now. i actually chose the qp for the neck because the qp in my bass sounded awesome. probably not a great way to go about choosing a guitar pickup, lol. in hindsight i would have gotten 3 different pickups, but still from duncan.
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

It all started with "Gawd, this bridge pickup sounds awful", referring to my first electric guitar - MIM fat Strat.

Somehow that lead me over to this forum, among other places, and on to three new pups...

So it's really all y'all's fault!

Chip
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

Back in high school I had a guitar body I made out of pine and I had put a crappy cheap humbucker that I bought for $30 in it. A friend of mine and fellow player in HS sold me a Duncan Distortion for $20 shortly after that. That was my first experience with Duncans.
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

George Lynch! When the Screaming Demon first came out around 1990, I wanted one really bad! That was my 1st replacement p/u.

I always liked how the old SD ads in guitar magazines were written in 1st person, like Seymour himself wrote them (and probably did).
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

they were the first company i found who made aftermarket jaguar pickups. then i found out they make lots of others, too.
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

the fact that every guitar i've ever bought (except the schecter w/emgs) has had horrible stock pickups.
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

Becasue at first I tried EMG's and thought they were awful so, I tried Duncan next!
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

Because my dad told me that they were the ones who taught Vince Cunetto how to age pickups. He has two cunetto relics that sound great.

The Seth Lover pickups only tempted me more.
 
Re: What made you want to try SD pups the FIRST time?

Sound bites period. I went to EMG's site but everthing was high gain and I like to have a more 'natural' sound. DiMarzio was weird like thier Super distortion was a sound clip of Ace Frehley playing the solo of 'Rock and Roll All Nite', like I care !

Seymour Duncan made it easy with it's clips and descriptions, so yeah, sound bites.
 
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