Hands-On Review of Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster
I was poking around, looking for some pedals, and after picking Mason's brain
he said "You gotta try this." He handed me the new Seymour Duncan
Pickup Booster and let me give it a spin.
Flat out, this is the best boost pedal I have tried to date. It manages to sound incredibly transparent while somehow managing to round out the "fizz" that you sometimes hear when you slam a 12AX7 preamp tube. Add to this resonance filtering options that allow you to fine tune your pickups and you have a great sounding and versatile pedal. My experience has been that these filters work best with single coils. They really do give my Fenders a slightly rounder, humbucker like tone. Does it make them sound like a Les Paul? No, but they do gentlly smooth out the upper mid-range in a very pleasant way.
The pedal solves a few issues I've had with some of my amps. I own a Fender Super-Sonic combo (an exceedingly loud amp). Like many Fenders, it sounds rather thin until you hit 2-or 3 on the volume knob. The problem is that the amp is screamingly loud at that level. The Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster, set to a 6bB boost (the smallest increment available) comes to the rescue by thickening up the sound nicely. I also own a Genz Benz Black Pearl, which offers a built in variable boost. While flexible, the internal boost sometimes sounds a bit too ragged and raspy for my taste. The Pickup Booster takes thing to a whole new level. When I dime the pedal with a 25dB boost, I get a very different gain. The sound becomes smooth, tactile and almost Marshall-like way that cleans up perfectly with a twist of the guitar's volume knob. Push it even harder with a humbucker guitar and I get a perfect classic rock crunch. Very, very nice.
This pedal is very reasonably priced and runs for a very long time on a 9 volt battery (a nice plus!). If you've never tried a boost pedal you'll be surprised how flexible they can be.
- Dan Lewis
Contact Information
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E-mail: bobsmusicplattsburgh@yahoo.com
Location: 32 Plattsburgh Plaza, Plattsburgh NY