Seymour Duncan Black Winter Humbucker Pickup - Set

I play a lot of Extreme Metal subgenres and these things are perfect for all things Extreme Metal. The coil split tone is very unique and different from a lot of the traditional medium & high output pickups. I can get a very strange clean guitar similar to something like the clean tone like Pantera's Floods, or even Death's Lack of Comprehension. If you're into the Animals as Leaders overdriven "thumping" tone, you can achieve a great unique version of those type of tones. Seymour Duncan initially made these pickups for more Black Metal sounds than anything else and it shows, there's a lot of clarity despite high gain tones. I actually played a friend's 8 string guitar with the Black Winter installed and I could hear each of the individual 8 string's note, you can play wide open chords and hear it vividly even with a scooped mid tone. The neck is surprisingly very versatile, I'm not entirely sure where it lies on the output range but it seems to be more of medium output from what I can audibly tell. My only complaint is the bridge pickup is not versatile but then again, what do you expect from an Extreme Metal pickup geared towards Black Metal tones. You're not gonna get any Jazz or Blues tones from the bridge although the neck will be able to. If you play Extreme Metal, get this pickup, you will not regret it. If you play anything outside of Extreme Metal, I would recommend doing a lot of research or even playing a guitar with it installed. If you're looking for something versatile for an all-around guitar, you'll be happy with the neck, you will not be happy with the bridge.

As you'd expect, when the packaging looks menacing and these are called "Black Winters" you know you're in for a treat.I had these put in an Ibanez RG that has a HSH pick-up config, for the nerds out there I put a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder in the middle, although I may change it for a hot rail, I digress.With these being very high output, you can get some pretty gnarly tones at mid gain, and some brutal sounds with even higher gain. Very cold sounding bridge pickup but a thick and sludgey neck pickup, can very easily cut well through a mix.Pick-ups specifically for black metal, what would you expect? Very good, just hard to control the tone.

I threw these in a Gibson SG and they sound great. I like to shred a bit and play heavy but I also like to play Rock N Roll. These pickups covered both arenas. They can even do some Blues. They are hot, thick, and have plenty of clarity. But what was so surprising was how rich they are. They actually have monstrous tone. Yet they retain all the clarity and bite you need for metal. When you roll these off they clean up reasonably well too. New they could do the heavy stuff but was shocked at everything else they could do. Oh, 1 last thing, amazing lead tones in the neck and bridge. Good stuff.

These are some of my favorite pickups of all time. I have a variety of guitars, each with non-stock pickups. Everything from custom MJ-wound '59's to multiple Bare Knuckle offerings, to Lundgrens. The Black Winters, while designed specifically for the Black Metal crowd, do everything really well. I can go from brutal doomy chugs to beautiful post-rock ambience, to driven bluesy warmth, and to pristine cleans with an OD pedal and my volume knob. I've never put the same set of pups in multiple guitars until these and I had to force myself to not put them in a third guitar purely for variety's sake. My guitarist played my 7-string with BW's in it and immediately ordered himself a pair.In other words, yes, you want these. Yes, you will be happy with your choice. These are possibly the best pickups out there right now.

Clear rich warm fat and powerful as hell. And you know what else? Coil split it. It has an amazing spanky single coil sound as well. Put them in an all-mahogany Gibson V with CTS push-pull pots for the coil split and it is an amazing and versatile machine. Clean with the tone rolled back a little is very sweet. I tend to overuse the bridge pickup but with these every combination sounds good, and some very different sounds are possible.

The Seymour Duncan black winter is one of the best pickups you can buy. I personally put it on my Jackson Dinky js22 DKA, and the sound differences from the Jackson to the black winter is amazing. The pickups sound amazing in anyway you play them. Strangely enough they sound even better in clean tone. Installing them isn’t hard, and even I who am a novice in soldering was able to solder them onto my guitar. I would recommend check Seymour website for specifications for wiring.

This was used on a kit project. I must say, these pups are very dark with distortion. Probably could have used a lower rated cap on the tone pot. But, on clean it has a very warm acoustic tone.

Pickups came as described with no issues.