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Price Paid
$74
Condition
New
Humbucker/Single Coil/Stacked Single
Humbucker
Passive/Active/Not sure
Passive
AlNico/Ceramic/Not sure
Ceramic
Output
High
Instrument Installed in
Ibanez SZ520, Charvel USA So Cal
Sound Quality
5 (excellent)
Reliability

 

Never had a problem with a Seymour Duncan pickup.

Customer Support

I've contacted them a few times with questions, and have always had my questions answered thoroughly and promptly.

Summary

Let me start by saying I dislike ceramic magnet pickups, for me they are too compressed sounding, and too harsh in the highs, I prefer the warmth and openness of an Alnico II or V. With that out of the way, I love the Seymour Duncan Custom.

The Custom is a high output ceramic pickup, with tight punchy bass, cutting highs, and a good amount of midrange. What I like about the Custom is that though the ceramic bar gives it an inherently compressed sound, it isn't overly so, to my ears ceramics typically have a nasally sound, not the Custom, it's just tight. The highs are also not brittle, they are sharp. It's sensative to pick attack, articulate, and rich with harmonics. It's not a modern sounding high output pickup, more of a hot rodded angry PAF sound.

Currently the Custom is installed in an Ibanez SZ520, which is basically a double cutaway Les Paul style guitar, thick mahogany body and set neck with a maple top, and to me sounds killer, along with the Duncan '59 in the neck position.