Dino Cazares working with Seymour Duncan

[Drew]

Problem is, logically speaking drop-in EMG-7 replacements are an untapped market niche Duncan stands to capitalize on. The best we can hope for is for them to offer two versions, EMG-sized and non-EMG-sized, but the reality is there are a lot of people out there with EMG equipped guitars that would love to try something else, and Duncan is in position to be the first to offer them an alternative.

I don't like it either, but I understand the appeal.

 

[Cancer]

I'm sending this letter to both Seymour Duncan and Dino (through his Myspace) let me know what you think.


Thanks in advance for reading.

In the seven string community any addition to the choices we currently have is always met with celebration. Your new Blackouts for 7 string are no exception, as many in the community already use your passive products with a degree of pride. However, we are troubled by your decision to encase the Blackouts in an EMG 7 string sized housing, as many in the community have already sworn off the EMG, simply because of the modifications a guitar would have to withstand in order to install them.

I understand that the current aftermarket demand for an active 7 string may be attractive to you, and I also understand that many of the guitar manufacturers you would want to supply OEM parts to are already tooled to machine guitars using the 707's pickup dimension, however as a passive 7 string pickup maker, surely you must see the INSANITY of forcing a player to possibly choose between passive pickup or a pickup that requires an install not easily reversible.

Currently, the only pickup maker making passive sized active 7 string pickups is Bartolini (edited on 04/11/2007, as I just discovered that Bartolini has discontinued manufacture of this pickup) , which are difficult to obtain, and despite their standard size tricky to install. Your other competitors (Dimarzio and Bareknuckle) have resorted to retrofitting their current passives in order to achieve active tonalities, to various degrees of success. By making a passive sized active 7 string pickup, you would have this market virtually all to yourself, the choice for the passive player seeking an active solution would be automatic.

Making a passive sized active 7 string pickup also allows a player to potentially return to your passive product if they found your new active not to their liking. The way is it now, after modifying their instrument and installing a Blackout 7, if a player decided the pickup was not for him, his only choice is to go with an EMG.

Perhaps the best way to go about this is to make Blackout 7 in both sizes, thus satisfying of both your aftermarket and OEM customers, but if this is not economically viable for you, I would implore you to use this as an opportunity to redefine the standard for a 7 string active pickup dimension, and stop this insanity started by EMG once and for all.

Thanks again for reading.

Tony Mallory
7 string guitarist
Member of sevenstring.org





By the way, if you like the above, feel free to use it.

 

[Shannon]

Well said.

 

[Nats]

wow, beautifuly writen

 

[JPMDan]

that should be a petition from everyone on the forum well the ones that agree that is.

 

[Drew]

Tony, I appreciate your passion for trying, but let me re-emphasize:

...the reality is there are a lot of people out there with EMG equipped guitars that would love to try something else, and Duncan is in position to be the first to offer them an alternative.

What they're doing makes perfect business sense; currently EMG owners have no graceful recourse if they want to change to something else. Duncan is about to become the first major supplier of aftermarket EMG-sized replacement pickups. While it's true standard-sized actives are still a fairly untapped market, as you yourself point out it's not wide open - Dimarzio and Bareknuckle, to say nothing of Lundgren, have all produced passive pickups with much of the tone of actives, and in some instances are held to be BETTER than EMG's. Bartolini, meanwhile, already makes standard sized active pickups. However, no one is making a drop-in replacement for EMG's.

Look at it this way - most people who REALLY want actives have already routed their guitars. Duncan could do a standard sized and try to carve out a corner of the standard-sized EMG alternative niche market, but theiir prospects are arguably better by giving existing EMG users an alternative.

Like I said, if you're going to get anywhere, your best bet is to ask them to make two versions, or if nothing else offer a standard sized version at a nominal custom shop upcharge.

 

[Cancer]

Question to the Mods...

Wouold it be cool to make a poll (maybe even a stickee'd one), maybe something like?

a. I would buy Blackout 7's in a standard passive size.
b. I would buy Blackout 7's in an EMG 707 size.
c. I don't care either way.

That way we could have a central location for people to chime in AND for the Duncan lurkers to go to get the straight dope on our opinion?

 

[nikt]

cool letter, but I would rather see EMG in a normal format then a EMG sized passives from SD.

Currently, the only pickup maker making passive sized active 7 string pickups is Bartolini,

this isn't true. Also MERLIN pickups is making passives in EMG size

 

[Cancer]

cool letter, but I would rather see EMG in a normal format then a EMG sized passives from SD.



this isn't true. Also MERLIN pickups is making passives in EMG size

I've never heard of Merlin, but thanks for the correction.

Look at it this way - most people who REALLY want actives have already routed their guitars. Duncan could do a standard sized and try to carve out a corner of the standard-sized EMG alternative niche market, but theiir prospects are arguably better by giving existing EMG users an alternative.

Like I said, if you're going to get anywhere, your best bet is to ask them to make two versions, or if nothing else offer a standard sized version at a nominal custom shop upcharge.

Seems to me that most people who have EMG, are pretty inclined to stay there, this happens whether they install EMG's on their own, or buy a guitar with EMG installed, they get there and they stay there end of story.

Passive owners on the other hand, unless they find their be all end all pickup, swap pickups in and out more often, so IMO this is a bigger potential market. I have no numbers to back this up, but I'm pretty sure their are more passive 7 stringers then active 7 stringers, so not tapping that market is, as I said before, INSANITY, plain and simple.

Unless, of course, Duncan's goal is to tap into the OEM market, in which case, like EMG they just decided to bypass the aftermarket altogether, which like EMG, quite frankly fucks the community, as it pretty much says "hey guess what, we care more about the guitar manufacturers, then we care about end players".

 

[JPMDan]

I think what it comes down to is EMG should make a housing that directly fits a passive size routing and Seymour Duncan should do the same. I'ts not like the pickup needs such a huge housing... Unless someone has opened up the EMG707/81-7 and can tell me otherwise.

 

[jtm45]

There's also those Korean (?)actives called Tesla or something,the ones W4D was gonna' have on the Halo8.I think they're the same size as EMG's.
I don't think there's any way on earth SD will listen to us.
Like Drew said,they're obviously aiming at the EMG replacement market.

I'd be very surprised if Dino actually ended up using these SD's as his amin pickups as he's always been a big supporter of EMG's and was pretty instrumental in the introduction of the 707.

 

[Drew]

Seems to me that most people who have EMG, are pretty inclined to stay there, this happens whether they install EMG's on their own, or buy a guitar with EMG installed, they get there and they stay there end of story.

Passive owners on the other hand, unless they find their be all end all pickup, swap pickups in and out more often, so IMO this is a bigger potential market. I have no numbers to back this up, but I'm pretty sure their are more passive 7 stringers then active 7 stringers, so not tapping that market is, as I said before, INSANITY, plain and simple.

Unless, of course, Duncan's goal is to tap into the OEM market, in which case, like EMG they just decided to bypass the aftermarket altogether, which like EMG, quite frankly fucks the community, as it pretty much says "hey guess what, we care more about the guitar manufacturers, then we care about end players".

The reason passive owners swap pickups a lot more than active pickup owners, Tony, is that there ARE no direct retrofit EMG-sized pickups, passive or active, on the market. A lot of people, myself included, are not 100% happy with EMG's. I liked the 707 in the neck, but I absolutely couldn't deal with the bridge 707. Would I have kept the Hellraiser if I could have put in a new pickup without some serious modifications? Absolutely.

Stop looking at it like Big Establishment is trying to fuck the Little Guy. Look at it like this - now, if you want to try actives and you route your guitars for EMG's, if you don't like it you still have options. I don't like it either more than you, and I'd personally like to see EMG (and now Seymour Duncan) start to offer actives in both normal AND "traditional active" sizes. However, Duncan's move makes perfect sense to me - replacement EMG-sized active pickups is a totally untapped market. Would people be more inclined to swap out EMG's if there were direct replacements on the market? Absolutely.

Myself, I'd say concern over active pickup housings sort of pales compared to the absolute lack of aftermarket seven string singlecoils, but hey, that's my pet project, so whatever.

 

[JJ Rodriguez]

Yeah, but who's crazy enough to want single coils in their 7 beside you?

 

[Drew]

Chris.

 

[JJ Rodriguez]

I mean REAL people

 

[Ryan]

^ lol.

I see both sides of the question at hand. The 707 sized duncan would still open doors to new active sounds either way. Beggers can't be chosers. Before this, there was pretty much only EMG to look to for reputable active 7 string PUs. No we have 2 companies at it. I'll take what i can get instead of complaning its not good enough. ;D

 

[Rick]

Wonder what this bad boy will sound like.

 

[7 Strings of Hate]

it dont really matter to me, i already fucked up my guitars with the route, so its actually only good news for me, and besides, its like you guys said, i'v been using emgs for as long as i can remember, didn't change them, wont change them, i even tryed a dimarzio in my 7321 cuz everyone always raves over them, and yea, the blaze i got did have a little smoother high end on the bridge, but it didnt have that crunch on the low end like an 81-7, and for smoothness, i just switch up to the 707 for that sweet neck

 

[Rick]

I really like EMGs so I plan on keeping mine.

 

[skinhead]

Dino with Duncan I love the way that the 707's look on the simple custom RG, but i think that the SD it's going to look metalish and stylish