'59s

A rather laid back Sunday. Took this one out to play. It's an Ibanez S1625, first debuted in 2003. It's good for only a year before Ibanez discontinued this model. 

This guitar has a pair of covered Seymour Duncan '59 humbuckers. That's right - '59s - one of the most restrained model SD has to offer. These were meant for PAF-esque tones aimed at the Les Paul camp, mostly. However, being me & my embrace for all things extreme, these pickups are perfect for heavy metal & beyond. I have never bought SD humbuckers with the intention of assigning them for pristine clean tones; I prefer single coils for that kinda application. Every humbucker in my guitars must be at the ready for extremity, regardless of what the manufacturer claimed them to be. 

The '59 is basically a scooped tone humbucker as depicted by the manufacturer. Note that it has a rather excessive treble response & that's why it sounds awesome for single notes in the neck position under extreme distortion. However, turn your tone down & it will manifest excellent rounded notes this side of jazz. The scooped nature is what makes this humbucker outstanding for heavy music but your distortion source must be up to it because the '59 is no match for its other higher output siblings like the Distortion, Custom & Nazgul among others. These latter models were created to stun in the first place, hitting your strings hard will actually distort your signals but the '59 would keep things cultured until a definite source of drive / distortion is introduced into the signal chain. This is only my third guitar to be featuring a set of '59s, the other two being my Edwards Potbelly & ESP Phoenix. That's right, the bridge humbucker in my S1620 is a Trembucker version - covered '59 Trembucker, that's a rare beast.

EQ Pic: SD