Weekend booster

Alright, Seymour Duncan's Pickup Bosster Ver 2.0 is fnally in the house!

Seymour Duncan: Pickup booster

Seymour Duncan has re-introduced its Pickup Booster pedal (Ver 2) with much more gain, as claimed, via the push-pull gain knob. That's a fantastic option IMO because some of us just wants a dirt voicing to kick in with our boosters. Most of the time, we simply need more of what we have & the booster should remain clean so Duncan now offer both options. I'm gonna leave you with the demo clip by the manufacturer & after watching it if you think you have that much gain on tap- not quite. The PB will accentuate what you have, meaning, the drive responses are largely dependent on your pedals or amps, it's not gonna come from the pedal per se (I own the Ver 1). A good booster unit should remain in its booster territory, not double up as a drive/ distortion source.

Booster

I was playing my guitar through my Peavey XXL amp & as usual, I tried to attach a soft overdrive to it to increase the sensitivity & aggression (ha!) but unlike my Marshall MG head, this amp isn't one to accept overdrive readily, especially to its non-clean channels. However, I need the extra injection to trigger the noise gate so what better than a clean booster to do the job. I used my Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster as it has voicing variations.

Seymour Duncan: Pickup Booster

Seymour Duncan, a primary guitar pickups manufacturer, makes great pedals as well. My first Duncan pedal is this red wonder here which is a pickup booster but it is specifically meant for single coil units more than any other pickup types. Humbuckers would only benefit from one of its three modes on offer as these pickups are inherently fat in certain frequencies so a voicing make-over by this pedal would yield a poor difference.

As mentioned above, I employ this pedal when playing my Strats. Single coil pickups are great for solos but they aren't high output by default to generate a certain saturation level in overdrive mode. They are also too protrusive in the upper frequencies so for those of us who peddle bass notes in certain songs, the tone generated would be too shrill.

Please do not go away after reading this entry thinking the Duncan PU Booster converts the average single coil into a humbucking thumper- no. It merely boosts selected frequencies to fatten up the tone for it to rival the latter pickup type. Be assured that the twang in your single coils are kept in tact after all that boosting.