The History of PU and the Brands that Adorn It
Seymour Duncan aims to replicate vintage pickups
While Larry DiMaggio was the first to develop high-power, easy-to-use modern-style pickups, it was Seymour Duncan who started a new trend in the replacement pickup market by developing traditional-style pickups that reissued vintage sounds. Seymour Duncan was the first to develop traditional style pickups by reissuing vintage sounding pickups.
In his student days, when he was wired with turntables
Originally a guitarist, Seymour Duncan used to play a 1956 Telecaster.
He was friends with Roy Buchanan, and on Roy's advice, he put an A string for tenor banjo on the first string.
Around 1965, he had an opportunity to lend the Telecaster to someone, but the person who lent it to him was used to thicker strings, and when it came back to him, the first string was digging into the rear pickup.
Duncan was at a loss, as no sound came out of the rear pickup even after he pulled the string off. The next day, during a high school biology class, he used a microscope to check the damage (the teacher, by the way, was furious).
When he returned home, he disassembled the pickup to check the internal damage and consulted his uncle, who worked for a chemical company, who informed him that the wires were made of plain enamel AWG42. Duncan thus obtained the wire, but he did not have the equipment to wind the pickup. So he attached a block of wood to a record turntable, set a bobbin on it, and began winding the wire.
At first he turned it at 33 1/3 rpm, but eventually he got it up to 78 rpm. But this time, the fixation could not hold and the bobbin blew up, hit the wall, and cracked.
(Excerpt from the website)
Thus, Duncan, who was supposed to wire the bobbin but ended up making it from a bobbin, realized that the bobbin was made of Vulcan Fiber paper. He cut out a corner of a friend's Vulcan fiber paper drum case and used it as a bobbin to create the pickup. At that time, he produced it with 45 rpm. Incidentally, Larry DiMaggio also started out winding his pickups on a turntable, so it just so happens that he used a similar method of wiring.
Researching vintage pickups and his experience with Fender
Later, while researching vintage pickups and working as a repairman, Duncan found an ad in a magazine in the 1970s for a Fender repairman.
Around 1973, he began working at the Fender Service Center in England, handling electronics, wiring, and customizing/repairing guitars.
It was there that Duncan met Jeff Beck and together they created the famous guitar.
Duncan met Jeff Beck and together they created the famous "Tele Gib," a guitar with a carved humbucker counterbore on the front, a cracked rosewood fingerboard replaced with maple, and Gibson frets driven in.
(Excerpt from the website)
After working with a variety of artists, including Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, Duncan returned to California and began making aftermarket parts for vintage Telecasters.
(Excerpt from the website)
Birth of Seymour Duncan Inc.
Around 1976, he accepts a pickup rewinding job for David Schecter.
At the same time, while doing repair work for "Jensen Music," he finally began his "pickup winding" business in earnest.
The main reason why he started rewinding pickups was because he did not find any pickups that he liked among the pickups that were available at that time.
In the same year, he established Seymour Duncan Inc. to manufacture, repair, and improve pickups.
(Excerpt from the website)
Seymour Duncan's Unwavering Commitment
Seymour Duncan believed that the tone of a vintage guitar was greatly influenced by the wood, paint, and hardware.
Therefore, he aimed to create "replica pickups" that not only looked but also sounded like vintage pickups by using the same materials and the same appearance as vintage pickups.
If it were not for Seymour Duncan, who focused on the idea of replicating vintage pickups, there might be fewer vintage-style pickups and parts on the market today.