by Brian D. Holland.

The Seymour Duncan Guide To Pickups DVD is an all encompassing video tutorial of electric guitar pickups. Players desiring extensive knowledge of the instrument’s most important component relating to amplification and tonal diversity get a revealing and fascinating presentation from the world’s foremost pickup manufacturer. Seymour Duncan, himself, participates in conversation and in demonstration, along with Evan Skopp, Vice President of Marketing for Seymour Duncan Pickups.

The DVD is separated into these sections:

‘Pickup 101’: Introduction; Piezo Pickups; Magnetic Pickups: which explains single coil, humbucker, and the single coil sized humbucker; Passive vs. Active Pickups; What Is A Pickup?; and The Parts of a Pickup: coil, bobbin, magnet, turns (resistance, output, and peak), and matching magnets to wood.

Next is a ‘Tour of the Seymour Duncan Factory’, which is a detailed sightsee into the making of a pickup from start to finish.

The third section is ‘How To Install Pickups’. The guitars used to demonstrate the procedure are a Gibson Les Paul, a Fender Stratocaster, and a Fender Telecaster. Seymour Duncan takes the viewer by the hand and explains how to exchange the guitar’s pickups from start to finish. This is an extremely interesting and informative presentation.

A complete guide to Seymour Duncan pickups by tonal preference follows. The last section is the DVD’s special features. Included here, along with a history of the Seymour Duncan company (presented by Seymour and his wife, Cathy), are pertinent discussions by a few endorsees: Pnut (311), Blues Saraceno, Nuno Bettencourt, Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump (Fall Out Boy), and also JT Woodruff, Micah Carli and Casey Calvert (Hawthorne Heights).

Alfred Publishing Co. - released Jan. 19, 2007

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Seymour Duncan
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Seymour Duncan - Guide To Pickups DVD on Amazon