Seymour Duncan History

Seymour Duncan is a company that is most famous for manufacturing of guitar pickups, and currently has a line of effects pedals. Company was founded in late 1978 by guitarist and luthier Seymour W. Duncan in Santa Barbara, California.

The first artist signature pickup was the SH-12 "Screamin' Demon" model, created for George Lynch (Dokken, Lynch Mob). Seymour Duncan also wound the humbucker in Eddie Van Halen's Frankenstrat guitar. Another well known Seymour Duncan artist is the late "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, with whom they collaborated on a signature pickup, the SH-13 "Dimebucker", which has been used on Abbott's tribute guitars, produced by Washburn Guitars and Dean Guitars. Seymour Duncan's Alnico II Pro (APH-1) pickups are also exclusively used by Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash. Seymour Duncan's best selling pickup model is the SH-4 "JB Model" humbucker, that originated from a pickup Seymour made for Jeff Beck in 1974. Dave Mustaine of Megadeth collaborated with Seymour Duncan to produce his very own signature set of active humbuckers.The late Randy Rhoads used Seymour Duncan Jazz and Distortion pickups on his Jackson custom (now Rhoads style) guitars.

Relatively new to the Seymour Duncan product line is the effects pedals series. The first pedal introduced was the Pickup Booster, a clean booster. The second pedal introduced was the Tweak Fuzz, a fuzz pedal with a "Tweak" switch that switches between six modes of fuzz. Introduced at Winter NAMM in 2006 was the Twin Tube Classic, a dual mode tube distortion pedal.

SH, as in SH-1, represents a regular (Gibson) spaced humbucker. TB, as in TB-1, represents a Trembucker spaced (Fender or Floyd Rose tremolo) humbucker.