Duncan Custom Neck Humbucker – Zebra

I own a 1993 PRS CE 24. After getting back into playing, I kept putting it down for my $500 Epiphone Les Paul because it sounded better. How could this be? After watching lots of YouTube vids of people creating awesome tones I got a bit jealous, tried different strings, adjusted the entire guitar from string height to the tress rod, and I even got some electronic cleaning fluid to clean up the pots. Noting improved the overall tone. The thing is, doing all of this helped the PRS play awesome in terms of actual functionality and feel, so I decided to search for new pickups . After watching and listening to a lot of vids it became clear that Seymour Duncan makes the best sounding pickups.I wanted a warmer tone to the bridge but wanted to maintain versatility in terms of rock to metal. I listened to lots of different pickups and decided on these. Not only do they sound awesome, they have dramatically improved the tone of my PRS in a way I did not expect. Get this....they PICKUP the guitar's sound! Not just "a sound" but a range of sounds that my stock pickups never did. Its not just that the guitar tone and sound is more responsive, that alone would have been worth the cost, but my effects pedal sounds so clear and crisp and I am hearing tones and dynamics that I did not know my pedal could produce! Its like I had and 8 Track and now I have HD audio (BTW I have the Line 6 Firehawk FX). This is equally true for distortion and overdrive. I can hear the reverb, flange, chorus, etc, in ways that my old pickup simply cut out. My guitar now sounds like it should. Now I just need to learn to play better!P.S. Initially I just replaced the wires as they were stock. But the 1993 pickups do not have a green wire so I ignored it. Doing so just let the bridge and neck positions work (and didn't sound great). After more research I simply grounded the greens and it was fixed!

The SH-5 ceramic powered Custom is one of the finest pickups I've ever played. While not as well-known as the JB or Duncan Distortion, it punches up there with the best of them. In output, it's a little lower than a JB or Distortion, but you can't tell when you crank it through a high gain amp. It just screams. The low end is actually tighter than a Distortion or JB. This is a pickup that can handle anything from earthy, roots rock and classic rock to full on metal. I've used it in a wide array of instruments from strats to Les Pauls, PRS and Yamaha Revstars. It always delivers the goods. It has a tight, but not thuddy low end, great sustain, a cutting midrange crunch with a lot of bite, screaming highs, and popping, edgy harmonics. Whether you want a Michael Schenker or Slash tone, or a George Lynch style hair metal tone, or even just play jazz fusion with a medium gain setting, this is the pickup you've been looking for.

I was worried they weren't going to be enough output, no worries! They're direct mounted so they're pretty low and still got great output! Great tone too, nice and balanced and tight bass response!

I just got this for my SG, I've owned many Duncan pickups and this is one of my faves.It'll cover a ton of ground musically. Blues to classic rock to metal. I have a 57 plus and it's just really flabby in drop d. This is a much tighter low end while still keeping that PAF tone I didn't want to lose. I try to keep my guitar selection to around four guitars and make them all as versatile as possible. You can't go wrong with this in a Les Paul or SG mahogany body. I've not played on in anything else but the Custom kicks butt in 24.75 scale mahogany guitars.FYI: the pic is white but you get a nickle cover with the 4 conductor cable which is what I wanted. I verified the part number before ordering and took a chance.

Threw this in my bridge on my Squire Starcaster. The PITA was wiring a Starcaster but the SH-5 sounds amazing.

I love this pickup so much I bought a second one so I could have one in both of my guitars. This pickup has a great distorted tone. It contributes the right amount of breakup to the gain on your amp or pedal. With this pickup, I can get a great distorted tone plugging directly into my amp (Marshall TSL100 running KT77 power tubes) with no pedals. Expect tight, well-defined, chunky lows, articulate highs and be able to pull artificial harmonics with almost no effort. I play a lot of modern rock, punk and metal influenced music - this pu is just right for my playing style.The pickup also sounds really good with the coils split. I love playing clean and was pleasantly surprised by this pu's clean character if the coils are split. Running on a single coil gives a darn good country sound. The open, airy, chimey quality of the split coil on my clean channel comes close to the quality of my $140 TV Jones neck pickup.Another great feature of this pickup is that it sounds great with other magnets. So if the ceramic magnet is too high output for you then you can swap it for another magnet to get a completely different sound out of this pickup. SD sells them with A5 and A2 magnets under different names. The A5 magnet sounds absolutely beautiful when clean, but doesn't contribute enough breakup to the distorted tone. I also tried an A8 magnet for a while and it sounded ok too, but not as great as with the ceramic magnet that it comes with.Overall, you can't go wrong with this pu. If you don't like the voicing simply buy a new magnet and swap for a completely different sound.

One of my favorite pickups. Can do any style of music. With the right amp it does metal perfectly. Slightly scooped sound. Very responsive with a warm smooth distortion.

Nice pickup if you’re looking for something outside of the obligatory 59’, Pearly Gates, or JB in the bridge. Needed a HB in a Strat but had other Strats with the aforementioned bridge pickups. This was something different. I’m satisfied.