Seymour Duncan continues its 50th anniversary celebrations with another limited edition electric guitar pickup drop that presents us with a Custom Shop replica of a humbucker that helped launch the sound of high-gain electric guitar, the Duncan Custom.
This ceramic humbucker has been meticulously reverse engineered, gently aged, and arrives in a set that pairs with it a hand-wound ’59. It’s one of the classic aftermarket pickup pairings; it’ll sound great in your Les Paul, in your Jackson, in any dual-humbucker guitar in need of a pick-me-up.
In today’s money, the Duncan Custom would be considered a medium-output pickup. But with a DCR rating of 14.1k, it is no slouch, and upon its launch it was one of those humbuckers that players sought out to give the front end of their guitar amp something to think about.
“Its small ceramic magnet and custom-wound coils deliver tight, focused lows, a pronounced upper-mid presence, and top end that cuts with clarity under gain while remaining articulate in clean settings,” says Seymour Duncan.
For all its extra juice, more harmonic detail, it still retains that sense of being a vintage pickup (and by all rights it is).
The set is limited to 500 units worldwide, and each pickup’s base plate is signed by Seymour W Duncan and the legend of pickup winding and head of the Custom Shop, Maricela “MJ” Juarez. It comes in a commemorative box, with original replica “Seymourized” stickers – and you can get the set with black or zebra bobbins.
The Duncan Custom is one of the originals, dating back to the ‘70s. It has evolved over the years – notably, it is bobbin design has made it more suited to wax potting. But this reproduction returns it to factory settings, using butyrate bobbins, long-leg base plates and maple spacers.
It should look like it was made in the ‘70s and kept in the box. It will still sound every bit as compelling as it did when they first started making them.
As will the the ‘59 Model at the neck. This has a slightly more scooped EQ profile, a DCR reading of 7.60k, and is hand-wound in the Custom Shop around an Alnico V magnet. This was Seymour Duncan’s “ideal” PAF-style humbucker – open, airy, three-dimensional, and over the years has been used by the likes of Trey Anastasio, Ben Harper and Paul Stanley.
The Duncan Custom Limited Edition set is available now, priced $375. See Seymour Duncan for more details.
