Earlier this month, Seymour Duncan kicked off its summer with a bang with the debut of four new pickup sets – the Eddie Van Halen-inspired Little '78 single-coil set, a new humbucker called the Exciter, a signature bridge humbucker for hair metal electric guitar hero Warren DeMartini, and a signature set for thrash (and jazz) guitar titan Alex Skolnick.
Not to be outdone, though, the company has now followed those up with a trio of limited-edition pickup sets that celebrate the 40-year tenure of the manager of Seymour Duncan's Custom Shop, Maricela “MJ” Juarez.
Most prominent of these is the Frampton Comes Alive humbucker set, which – aside from, of course, the blockbuster album of the same name – channels the unmistakable guitar sound of Peter Frampton.
The Frampton Comes Alive units feature the same specs as Frampton's own pickups, with Alnico 2 magnets and a "vintage" output. The first 160 sets were signed by Frampton and Juarez, with each set ringing up at $375.
A portion of the proceeds from the Frampton Comes Alive pickups will be donated to The Peter Frampton Myositis Research Fund as well as Notes for Notes, an organization that provides young people with free access to musical instruments, instruction, and recording studio environments.
The second of the MJ40th sets, as they're officially known, also pays tribute to a top-selling '70s rock album.
The Joker Strat set salutes the Steve Miller Band's best-selling 1973 album, The Joker, and features a trio of single-coil pickups wound – in the same manner that Juarez has been winding Miller's own custom pickups for decades – for vintage output around Alnico 2 magnets.
Miller's signature is printed on the cover of each pickup, while a "Joker" mask adorns each unit's bottom plate. The pickups are available, as a full set only, for $355.
Rounding out the new offerings from Seymour Duncan is the Pete Anderson Working Class Tele set, a recreation of the pickups in the country guitar dynamo's 1959 Telecaster.
The Working Class pickups feature a vintage output wind and Alnico 5 magnets – the first 160 have been aged, and signed by both Anderson and Juarez. They're available now, as a complete set only, for an even $300.
A portion of the proceeds from both the Miller and Anderson sets will go to Notes for Notes.
For more info on all three new pickup sets, visit the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop.
