Seymour Duncan Black Winter Bridge Trem

I bought it basically without testing it, I just checked few demos that compared it to some other high gain pickups, I wanted something that had a little bit more bite in higher frequencies and relatively tight low end. It is decently priced, of course you are not getting a level of clarity and quality you can get from more expensive pickups like Fishman Fluence but if you are on a budget and want a high gain/output pickup that will get you great tone for metal, with enough clarity in top end a tightness in low end to chug some heavy metal, shred until your fingers bleed, burn a church in your village with your new black metal riffs or even prog a little and don't want to waste a lot of money - get this pickup.

This one is of course a trembucker, it has a different width and position of poles for use in bridge position in a guitar with tremolo system like floyd rose, if your guitar doesn't have one then you should get a regular humbucker version of this pickup)

I have no words to describe the levels of awesomeness of this pickup. So clear and articulate when you play 6 string chords, you can listen to every single one played. Lowering the volume while clears up perfectly even with heavy distortion.

Its frequencies have a more mid-high perspective but lows are also very good.

Overall we are talking about a pick up which can be used to play ANYTHING in the range of metal, even blues. Clear tone is achievable with lowering your volume a bit. It cuts through the mix like butter, it has minimum noise for a passive magnet.

I seriously love this pickup so much. I bought it to change an EMG-81 on an RR24 and I could not believe the change, not me, not my band, not my technician who haven't heart this one before. Next I built a custom guitar, black winter set it is. Now I bought a 7string Jackson, 7 sting version set it is.

I recommend it hands down. Put your money to good use and listen to your chording like never before.

PS. First thing you will play on these is "Freezing moon" and then "The Burning Shadows Of Silence" in order to properly calibrate them.

First things first, this pickup is mainly ment for high gain metal tones and this review is centered around that.

With a DC resistance of 16.60K and a 6.68KHz resonant peak this pickup is a beast but a really well defined and a clear one.

Some say that this pickup is like a more refined SH-6 Distortion and on some points I do agree.

Downtuning doesn't cause any issues and this pickup retains its really defined sound and even fast black metal type chord stuff doesn't get all muddy.
Harmonics are a blast and a screaming lead tone is easily accessible - with a good amp of course.

I personally like this pickup for heavy palm muted rhythm playing due to its high output and tight charecter.

I'd bet that this pickup would go well with guitars made out of dark sounding woods such as mahogany since the overall tone on this pickup is well defined, clear and the highs are a little more pronounced. This would add to the already dark and resonant tone of mahogany.

This pickup also has quite a lot of street cred due to the evil looking case and logo.

I got the set to put in a Jackson King V i've had for a while and I'm not disapointed.

The Bridge version is tight, responsive and super articulate.

The Bridge version has a lot of extreme bass and treble frequencies so they drive amps to near breaking point but still has a lot of Mids which make it a good all round pick up for cutting through a mix.

It is incredibly hot though so obviously not suited well for blues, classic rock, Jazz etc although they do clean up quite well they have a bit too much gain to realy be utilized for clean playing.

While split you get a hot Strat type feel with a lot clean fluid feeling so great for legato and sustained notes.

These pick ups are excellent and what more can be expected from Mr Duncan and his team?

They both version super hot so i'd be wary about trying them if you want something subtle but the trade off is infinete sustain(as close as you'll get) articultation and a cutting tone.

Deffinetely worth getting if you play metal or shred and even Jazz at a push but still they are very very hot.