Seymour Duncan Pickup for Jazz?

**Fidelcaster** · 04-22-2016, 03:50 AM

They are often said to be a suboptimal choice for a jazz guitar. I I'd like to know why, exactly, because I never tried them but in theory they should be a good fit for an archtop, as they are said to have much less bass and middle frequencies than high frequencies, so that when you roll off the highs the sound shouldn't get boomy and muddy, losing clarity and articulation.

Also, SD has a (relatively) new humbucker called "Sentient". It's apparently marketed at metalheads, but it's said to be halfway between the Jazz and the '59 models.

**tusculum** · 04-22-2016, 05:30 AM

SD makes Benedetto pickups and you could probably just stop there. The zephyrs are also amazing because of their purity and clarity. For a warmer sound the vintage replica humbucker pickups are great, not too high powered. SD also offers a neat bracket called the Liberty that if fitted allows pickups to just clip in and out without solder so you can swap them around.

**Fidelcaster** · 04-22-2016, 05:33 AM

Thank you, but I would like to know specifically why many people consider the Jazz model not to be a good choice for a jazz guitar. (The mention of the "Sentient" was an unintentional auto-threadjack!)

TH · 04-22-2016, 06:54 AM

Taste...and reputation. There's a reputation among so many who've never even played a Jazz that they're harsh and trebly. Unplayable. Unpleasant. Cold.
Compared with sound standards like the Gibson PAF, they have more mid and upper range presence to my ear.
But I love them. My ear leans towards an acoustic sound with transients...and I love the old Guild blister pickups. Another pickup some people like, some consider trash.

Taste. People who like PAF's like PAF's. There is a marked difference and it effects the way you play. I had a semi hollow body instrument. In that, I liked the Antiquities, a PAF sounding Duncan pickup. In the hollowbody, I like the jazz. It brings out the acoustic clarity I love in that instrument. I play fingerstyle and it fits what I want to get, and it inspires me. It's just taste. I guarantee there'll be someone who will state with utter conviction "The _____ is the jazzy pickup." Yeah, of course you've heard it before...

Strings, picks (or not), amp, playing style, musical styles, guitar type, top material, pickup height, who you're playing with, your own ears...all have more to do with whether you're a Jazz or PAF advocate. Much more than reputation.

I will say I've got one of my guitars being played by a friend now; it has a Jazz in it. At first he said it was different, upper range clarity and more open sounding than what he was used to. Very shortly he came to play and hear differently. He loves it now-is considering putting one in his own guitar.
Individual taste of a player takes it over the reputation of another when it comes down to it.

In my humble opinion anyway.
David

**Fidelcaster** · 04-22-2016, 07:00 AM

Thanks,ThruthHertz.

**medblues** · 04-22-2016, 07:31 AM

Originally Posted by Fidelcaster

They are often said to be a suboptimal choice for a jazz guitar. I I'd like to know why, exactly, because I never tried them but in theory they should be a good fit for an archtop, as they are said to have much less bass and middle frequencies than high frequencies, so that when you roll off the highs the sound shouldn't get boomy and muddy, losing clarity and articulation.

Also, SD has a (relatively) new humbucker called "Sentient". It's apparently marketed at metalheads, but it's said to be halfway between the Jazz and the '59 models.

I have SD Jazz in the neck position of my Godins and a Tele style guitar. They are different but definitely not worse or better than the DiMarzio PAF pickups on my Soloway. Slightly less bassy, and as others observed, never gets muddy. On the plus side, you can play brighter sounding styles by turning the treble back up. I would consider them closer to a mini humbucker in sound. They also sound similar to a stacked humbucker Barden Tele neck pickup.

In summary, they have possible wider range of applications than jazz-famous humbuckers but can sound very appropriate/indistinguishable by tweaking the EQ and playing with the string distance.

**Longways to Go** · 04-22-2016, 09:31 AM

I recently installed a Jazz neck & 59 bridge into a Squire Starfire 335 type semihollow.
I really like the set -- very flexible, very easy to dial in.
I'm pretty sure I would enjoy the Jazz neck in other guitars too.

I don't buy into the whole "SD Jazz isn't a good jazz pickup" thing you see on the internet.
You gotta try it yourself before you can ever really know.

**jzucker** · 04-22-2016, 09:36 AM

dunno but the burstbucker 1 is my favorite "jazz" pickup.

**Lobomov** · 04-22-2016, 10:07 AM

I have not tried the jazz .. but someone mentioned the SD Benedettos. I have an A6 in my Ibanez PM100 and it is an amazing pup

Sendt fra min SM-G925F med Tapatalk

**Jazz_175** · 04-22-2016, 10:08 AM

Originally Posted by jzucker

dunno but the burstbucker 1 is my favorite "jazz" pickup.

Which guitar have you played it in?

**jads57** · 04-22-2016, 03:26 PM

Owning a Benedetto Bambino Std. I'd like to weigh in own the SD p/ups made for Benedetto. I found them to be too hot and overly bass and mid heavy. I replaced them w/ Manluis Landmark PAF's which much improved the tone of the guitar. All Ican say is it sounds very balanced and open , like somone removed a blanket. The SD jazz is a nice sounding p/up as well, but I've only heard them in solid body guitars.

**Nate Miller** · 04-22-2016, 03:40 PM

I have a Seymore Duncan vintage P90 as the neck pickup on my 1954 Gibson 175.

a far as I can tell, those are as close to an exact replacement for the originals as I'm going to get

acts just like the bridge pickup which is still original Gibson

so I don't know about those jazz pickups, but if would like to have a pickup like what shipped as original equipment with my Gibson 175 back in the 1950s, the vintage 90s are pretty much that

**jzucker** · 04-22-2016, 03:40 PM

Originally Posted by Jazz_175

Which guitar have you played it in?

I have them in my '63 and '66 Barney Kessels. They sound great for straight ahead jazz and the bridge sounds great for robben ford style fusion and the two together sound fabulous as well. It's just a great pickup and beats out pretty much any other jazz pickup I've ever used.

**newsense** · 04-22-2016, 04:37 PM

I have a SD Jazz in the neck position of my Godin Montreal Premiere. I agree with others who have commented above, and the OPs proposal, that you can back off the treble without it becoming muddy. I can get a very pleasant jazz tone out of this thinline with the tone control on 4, yet I can do more blues and rock, or clean acoutsic sounds, without the roll off. It may not be the very est jazz HB, but I love it for its flexibility in a thinline semi.

**LtKojak** · 04-23-2016, 01:16 AM

In the early '80s, Seymour came up with two p'up designs that he put together in an old Telly, later known as the "Tele-Gib": a neck model, known as the JM model, made for country picker James Milner, and a bridge model, known as the JB model, made for his buddy, Jeff Beck.

At that time, Seymour couldn't afford the royalties involved using their actual player's names, so the JM became the "Jazz Model" and the JB became the "Jazz Blues" model.

As you can see, both p'ups have the "Jazz" in their names, but neither were ever thought out to actually play Jazz. Both models are clearly Rock and Fusion p'ups through and through, designed to retain clarity and articulation under moderate-to-high gain conditions.

Jeff Beck recorded a song with the "Tele-Gib" that Stevie Wonder made for him, after backing out of the early agreement with Jeff of giving him "Superstition", called "'Cause We've Ended As Lovers", contained in the "Blow by Blow" album that not only became a hit, but also wrote guitar music and tone history.

Stock, the Jazz neck, which uses an A5 magnet, is generally considered a bit too cold and sterile, not really a jazz player's dream... however, it's got an inherent sharp pick attack inbedded in the design, giving a lot of articulation in single note runs and note separation in complex Jazz chordwork that, by taming the coldness and sterility with the use of a warmer magnet, an Alnico 2, it's since its inception been very successfully marketed with a different name: APH1, or Alnico II Pro set, being Slash the most famous user of that p'up set, which also happened to write Rock history and tone... again!

I actually use this very set on my L5-CES copy, called Gertrude, but because of her inherent low-mid resonance peak, I use an A3 magnet in the neck, so it's perfectly balanced, both output- and tone-wise.

Great set, specially used with flatwound strings.

HTH,

**newsense** · 04-23-2016, 04:55 AM

Great info Lt K !

The spec for my Godin states that my neck pickup is actually a Jazz II - which doesn't appear on the SD website. I think I read somewhere that it was a customised version of the Jazz wound specifically for the Montreal, but that could just be marketing hype. When I first played the Montreal I was surprised at how warm it did sound, having experienced the standard Jazz in two previous guitars.

**va3ux** · 04-23-2016, 08:35 AM

Originally Posted by Fidelcaster

Thank you, but I would like to know specifically why many people consider the Jazz model not to be a good choice for a jazz guitar. (The mention of the "Sentient" was an unintentional auto-threadjack!)

The typical complaint about this pickup has been that it is trebly, and not warm and smooth. That is generally from people who were looking for the classic Gibson sound and did not find it in this pickup.