Anyone here ever owned a synth guitar? Not a Keytar, but a guitar fitted with a hexaphonic pickup that transmits MIDI data to external devices? And if so, do you readily admit it? The synth guitar has had one of the most checkered histories outside of, well, checkers. Since the ’70s, many brilliant minds […] 
“I always forget — which end gets hot?” Somewhat embarrassingly, I never got around to changing one of my own pickups until I was knocking on senility’s door recently. I owe part of the inspiration to that fabulous DIY Fest known as the Maker Fair, where each year hundreds of little kids learn […] 
Like this royalty-free clip-art illustration, the Alternative 8 manages to be both aggressive and round. I was talking to some of the Seymour Duncan dudes the other day about pickups models deserving greater public awareness. One of the first names on everyone’s lips was the Alternative 8, a a high-output humbucker that uses […] 
Aggressive on the bass side, sweet on the top. I was talking to Seymour the other day about the types of magnets used in vintage Fender pickups. I knew that Fender used strong, punchy alnico V magnets in most of their models, but I didn’t know that the earliest Teles used softer-sounding alnico […] 
Not for everybody: The sickest mongrel strat yet. Okay, I lied. In the previous installment of our ongoing mongrel strat series, I experimented with a version of Gibson’s oddball Vari-Tone circuit. I said it was too fussy and complex, and that I wanted to experiment with a simplified version. So naturally, I built […] 
The latest Mongrel Strat (artist's conception). Welcome to the second installment in the Mongrel Strat Series! If I were a sensible person, I would have split this week’s experiments into several posts. But much like eating pistachios, it’s tough to know when to stop . Anyway, this project tackles three topics: 1. Several […] I've got a box of strat pickups and I'm not afraid to use it! Okay, this should be an interesting experiment! I’ve scored a box stuffed with wildy varied Seymour Duncan replacement pickups for Strat™ guitars, plus a couple of the company’s just-announced BYOP Liberator Pickguards. (These are prewired pickguard assemblies, minus the […] |
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