Seymour Duncan SH-6 Set Distortion Mayhem

If you want to perform extreme musical styles with chunky distortion YET a lot of signal separation and clarity, these pickups will not disappoint. Very bright, hot and loud but without making the sound into a mess/wall of noise. I was genuinely surprised by the ability to hear individual tones when a lot of notes/strings are played together. Would definitely recommend these. I'm also interested to try the "black winter" pickups someday BUT I think the Distortion mayhem set is probably more useful for a wider spectrum of musicians.

Not a problem playing without high gain, too. "Clean" tones come through well, not overly grumbly/crunchy.

I put 3/5 for "quality" as Thomann shipped me what looked like a 2nd/returned box, which was cracked and in a bit of a mess. Pickups were fine, though, not a problem.

I also think there should be a more exhaustive explanation of wiring. I've no problem with this, but I can imagine it might confuse people not familiar with the inner workings of guitars. All wiring diagrams are technically available on the Seymour Duncan site, though, so bear this in mind if your guitar model isn't covered in the instructions (mine wasn't)

I bought these pickups to change my ibanez RG, which had those stock dimarzio that I never really liked but are extremely popular: tone zone and paf pro. I never could get a f**ing good warm and aggressive sound out of them. maybe people how like them so much play fusion. It was an epic story to plug these PUs in the guitar as Ibanez RG PUs cavities are shaped for DiMarzios and others wouldn't fit:- triangle shape vs square shape (I'll never buy Ibanez like that anymore). After all the trouble when I tried the PUs I wasn't blown by how they sounded. It was during a band practice, when the valves were very warm, I pushed the volume and I had a good gain level on my overdrive that I noticed how good I was sounding - and it even felt easier to come up with cool riffs - you know...those moments when you are jamming and everything seems to come out just right. Well now I know the PUs are warm and aggressive as I like, and the cleans are divine. Thanks Seymour, bye Dimarzio. NOTE My opinion is also influenced by my other guitar with Duncans JB and 59s. So bottom line - it isn't a sound that blows you away like what I felt with the JB and 59, but it's a very good sounding set. highly recommended.

I bought these pick ups to install in my BC Rich Mockingbird Special X and I wasn't disappointed with the results. These pick ups are high output and are perfect for a modern sounding Heavy Metal/Hard Rock tone. In a neck-through guitar they produce a monstrous tone with oodles of sustain. Power chords and palm-muted riffs will rip through your speakers and the lead guitar sounds are perfect for high volume shredding that will leave your ears bleeding! Here's a tip; do what I did and install the pick ups using the four wire conductor cable with coil tap pots. Because these pick ups are loud, they work really well when split as single coils. Just when you thought the beast couldn't be tamed, it will produce great strat type tones that makes your axe good for country, blues, classic rock and all the way up to the heaviest of metal! Great pick-ups, no complaints!

No problems during the installment in my Ibanez RG (basswood), everything pretty simple with the included instructions.
Quality is good as always, just as the sound.
Basses are tight (useful for droptunings), powerful and a bit slobbery mids, what I personally love (could also be caused by the basswood-body), highs can be squealing sometimes, but that's easy to handle with the tone knob on your guitar.
I'd rather recommend them for classic hardrock/heavy metal than for modern stuff, otherwise you'd probably have to cut the mids quite much. But that's just my opinion.