NAMM 2026: Slash and Seymour Duncan have unveiled the latest signature electric guitar pickups in their long-standing collaboration, with the 3.0 humbuckers offering a slighter hotter take than the Guns N’ Roses guitarist’s previous pickups.
But while they’re hotter, don’t expect then to send smoke billowing from your amp. They’re tastefully hotter, raunchier without an X-rating, and they come almost three years since the 2.0 APH-2 pickup set.
“There are a little bit more output than PAFs, but they’re clear,” explains Slash. “They don’t have a lot of gain to them, and they’re very honest and true sounding to the guitar.”
Designed around an Alnico V magnet, wax-potted, available with single or four-conductor wire, and with the choice of chrome or gold coverings, or with black, white or zebra-style black and white bobbins, the 3.0 humbuckers could be the pick-me-up your Gibson Les Paul has been waiting for – or maybe you have an Epiphone guitar that you have earmarked for a US-made pickup (Seymour Duncan hand-winds its pickups in Santa Barbara, CA).
They are offered in standard widths and trembucker sizings, the latter particularly useful if you have an HSS Strat-style guitar in need of hot PAF mojo (Slash has installed them in his BC Rich Mockinbird).
“[The] 3.0 has an Alnico V magnet in it, so it’s just got a little bit more oomph to it,” he says. “You still have that same clarity and cleanliness in the actual tone, and the honesty of the sound of the guitar, but you just have a little bit more output. The 3.0 is obviously a little bit raunchier than the 2.0 regular Alnico slash pickup. It gives you that extra boost that I need in certain guitars.”
That’s exactly what Slash needed for Guns N’ Roses’ set at Back To The Beginning, the mammoth all-star farewell show for Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne.
“Sometimes I’ll need a pickup that has a little bit more output but without changing the overall character of the pickup sound,” says Slash. “So what we did was we did 2.0, which is an Alnico II pickup, which has a tiny bit more output, and the three is basically just one more step up from that. The SG that I had at the Ozzy gig, that guitar needed a louder pickup, but I still wanted to have that sort of true-to-life guitar sound that I like in my guitars, and so that’s where the 3.0 idea came from.”
Where the design came from was Seymour Duncan’s ace in the hole, Maricela “MJ” Juarez, manager of the Custom Shop, trusted pickup guru to the stars.
Ask Joe Bonamassa, Billy Gibbons, Peter Frampton, and of course Slash, who might be good friends with Seymour Duncan, having used his pickups since 1987 and the recording of GNR’s incendiary debut LP, Appetite For Destruction, but he just calls MJ direct when a project like this comes up.
“She’s an unparalleled talent when it comes to pickup wiring,” says Slash.
The Slash 3.0 humbuckers are available now, individually or as a set, and are priced from $129. See Seymour Duncan for more details.
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