Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we're going to review a legendary humbucking pickup (click here for an article dedicated to humbuckers), which ended up also in our top 10 pickups list: the Seymour Duncan '59!
The '59 is a "p.a.f." pickup, which means "patent applied for", and indicates pickups that try to recreate the tone of those mounted on '50s and '60s Gibson guitars, with medium output but with a good, musical mid range, and with a present but not "scratchy" high end.
This style of pickup is still today extremely popular, and it inspired a wide production of clones from many manufacturers, to the point of almost becoming a standard.
The neck version of the '59 is probably the most popular Seymour Duncan neck pickup, and for good reasons: it's warm and full sounding thanks to its alnico 5 magnet, but it has a precise attack and the mediums are not too pronounced, resulting in a perfect balance both for clean parts (btw there is also a coil split version) and for high gain parts, since it sounds good also for high gain solos.
For my genre (I play mostly metal) a pickup like a p.a.f. would be too weak for the bridge position, I need higher output ones especially for a matter of low-end tightness and definition, but in the neck position a pickup like this is great, because it captures all the nuances and it's fantastic also when lowering the volume knob.
In conclusion this is the pickup that I usually suggest when someone asks me which passive humbucker to put in the neck position, since it sounds very balanced and pleasant for basically any genre, from jazz to metal, and you should check it out too, if you have the chance.
Thumbs up!
- DCR: Neck 7.60k
- Type: Passive
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