Seymour Duncan Distortion

[Zipper Neck]

I'm want to get a humbucker for my strat and I came across this Duncan Distortion on ebay. I was wondering if any of you guys here have had any experience with this pickup. If not, any recommendations? Any pickups for sale? Thanks.

[bruce919]

To me the Duncan Distortion is just a more Mid-range sounding JB with just a tad bit more output.

[DaveH]

The SH6 Distortion is actually my favorite pup. Much clearer than a JB, it can drive an amp hard, it cleans up very nicely when the guitar volume is rolled back (and it keeps the chime). They've sounded good in every guitar I've tried them in.

I think it's Travis who also likes these pups really well....maybe he'll have something to add. Try the pup, and give it a chance.

[md2020]

I have a somewhat butchered Centaura that arrived with one, and I like it better than the JB. Just enough more ooomph, or more oom-pa-pa if you're playing a polka. Go for it!

A little known factoid about the Distortion is that it is optimized for the Centaura's offset dots. I'm also a champion Sumo wrestler, appearing at the Budokan next Tuesday.

And here's the Grail of good news for all us Centauralots: there's a significant mojo boost when you fill the electronics cavity with sand! Sweet! Surf's up!

[MCChris]

The lead in this tune was recorded with a Duncan Distortion bridge PUP in a super-strat. Oh yeah, there's some wah on there too:

http://www.hamerfanclub.com/memberpages/mu...20Way%20Out.mp3

[Travis]

I sensed that I was needed here.

The Duncan Distortion is my absolute favorite pickup. At one time I had 8 of them in various guitars. Some were bridge only, and a couple had a pair in them. The only difference between a JB and a Distortion is the magnet. They are both wound with the same materials to the same specs, etc. But, that ceramic magnet in the Distortion makes a huge difference in tone. To me, the JB was always a little thin and kind of shrill. It had too many upper mids and not enough beef to the low end. The Distorion on the other hand is perfect for me. It is aggressive but not too harsh. The highs cut through but are not shrill like the JB is to my ears. It has quite a bit more lower mids which account for the more "mid-sounding JB" characteristic. The lows stay ultra tight even when pushed with high gain. Harmonics jump out of this thing like you wouldn't believe. And yet, it cleans up rather nicely as well. You might need to mess with the volume and tone knobs to dial in just the right clean sound, but it doesn't take that much effort. Granted, you're not going to get a vintage Strat tone out of the pickup, but split it is very similar to a hot Strat single coil.

I've used it in a variety of guitars ranging from mahogany body set necks, alder body bolt ons, and even a true neck through. Any way you slice it, the Distortion works for me. It does everything from dirty blues up to the hardest metal. I wouldn't suggest it for celan jazz, but you get the point.

Hope that helps.

[Iced Dragon]

I have had the Distortion in my maple body Jackson Dinky. It replaced a Bill Lawrence pup which was too brite. The distortion was quite an improvement but perhaps due to the maple not yet what I was looking for. Very tight bottom, indeed, but too thin sounding for leads (in that particular guitar). Anyway, I swapped it with the JB4 in my ESP Horizon (neck-through). The JB (which originally in my Jackson RR1) sounds much warmer in the Dinky than in the ESP.

Also surprisingly, the Distortion gives nice cleans in the ESP, but still doesn't give the sound I'm looking for. I'm thinking of replacing both the JB4 and the Distortion by a Custom Custom (I have a Custom in combination with a Jazz-neck humbucker in my RR1, which is currently my favourite combination for metal).

As of now I don't know if I'm going to sell the JB4 and Distortion yet but I will replace them asap and try some other combinations. They're not my favourite pups but maybe I'll find other guitars which'll do them right...

[Jack C]

I have an old Ibanez superstrat with a DD in the bridge spot. It's currently set up with a Warmoth baritone conversion neck but I've also used it with the regular 25 1/2 neck. In this guitar the pickup is really bright and doesn't seem to have a lot of body. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I had a tech assemble a new pickguard and the way he set it up, the tone control doesn't affect the bridge pickup (like on a Strat). Maybe the fact that it's not running through a tone pot is the problem.

[andyr]

I have a Duncan Distorsion HB as neck pickup in my Hamer Chaparral Standard (by the way: it sounds much more better than the Slammer-PU which was originally installed) and a SH-4 JB pickup in my Fender Strat plus.

The TB-6 / SH-6 and the SH-4 are both excellent pickups from my point of view. In the neck position these two pickups have an extraordinary distorsion sound and (a little bit surprising) a very good clean sound as well. The decision for the your choice should depend - of course - on personel taste and prefered music style:

I would say, the SH-6 has more mids and is better for high-distorsion-sounds (Hard-Rock, Metal). The SH-4 is a little bit more versatile. Some people say that for a Strat a SH-4 is the best choise of all. I would agree to this.

So if you don´t want to make Hard-Rock or Metal, I would recommend the SH-4 instead of a SH-6 for a Strat.

[zorrow]

I think the Distortion is a great pickup for heavy metal soloing. It gives me that "milky" sound I head for, with plenty of overtones. It has a high output, full of middles and highs, and just a fair amount of lows. In addition, it never gets muddy. It always produce a very well-defined sound, with a lot of sustain.

Nevertheless, you'll have to combine your bridge Distortion with something "fatter" in the middle or neck position if you want to play rhythms full of "meat", with a darker edge. I recommend getting Cold Rails (or Hot Rails, if you prefer more output) for the middle and neck positions in order to enrich your lower frequencies range.

By the way, I have something interesting to mention here: I replaced the stock Duncan Designed HB102 in the bridge position of my Californian import by a true TB-6; and to be fair, there's no big difference. The TB-6 just keeps the output at the same (high) level in the highest notes (beyond fret 22 in the high E string). Apart from that, the cheap HB102 is almost as good as the TB-6 -- which for me is a sheer surprise.

[Abaco]

FWIW, the Dimarzio Evolution should not be overlooked if you're looking for a great bridge hard rock/metal pickup.

[Jeroen]

What kinda sound are ya looking for? I play JB's on my Hamers, cause I think they match nicely with the Mahogany and with the 59'er (I play 90% using both, with volumes at 8 and 10 for the JB). This combination gives IMO an excellent sound for, rock, bluesrock etc.

I have a SH-6 in My Westone guitar and it was a great improvement to such a cheap guitar, but I didn't like playing it much, cause IMO it was a to much Heavy Metal sound. Bottom line, if you wanna rock hard 'n Heavy, it'll do the job otherwise a JB is more my thing.

Jeroen