Seymour Duncan Guitar Effects

This is the first Seymore Duncan Pickup Booster, the SFX-1 Pickup Booster. I have one as the first thing my guitar plugs into to take advantage of the pickup enhancement mode. The signal then goes into a Decibel Eleven Loop Expander that has a Buffer, then a Digitech RP-12, Digitech RP-1, then into another Seymour Duncan SFX-1 Pickup Booster with the toggle switch set to zero to drive my pedalboards signal 9dB's up with out altering my tone . I run both SD SFX-1's at 12 volts to get more out of them, instead of 9 volts, fed from my Decibel Eleven Hot Stone Deluxe for the cleanest sound possible. There is only one chicken head knob for raising the volume / gain boost , 6dB's to a whopping 25dB's. You can use it to add girth and gain to your overdrive, distortion or fuzz foot pedals, make your tubes sizzle harder when you go past 10 o'clock or just use it for pickup enhancement. The switch is 1,0 or 2. # 1 will give single coils a hot rodded P90ish kick but still retain the Classic Strat Quack. # 0 will only give you only un altered boost that is dictated by the gain knob and # 2 will give your single coil pickups the drive of a medium drive of 12k ohms pickup or maybe 13k ohms. If you love to drive your humbuckers slightly harder, use mode 1, unaltered w/ boost use mode 0 or if you want to make your passive humbucker pickup have the drive of a pickup ranging 18k ohms to 23k ohms, use mode #2. The older Seymour Duncan Pickup Boosters, like the SFX-1, boost range goes from 6dB's to 25dB's, while the current version goes from 0db's with pickup enhancement mode and up to 25dB's of with or with out pickup enhancement . I tried the newer ones, but I like the sounds of the older SFX-1 Pickup Boosters much better. They seem to hit the two tubes of my Digitech 2112 SGS and the tubes in my two VHT Valvulators 1's, like an extra tube before going into two Crate Power Blocks. If you get any version of the Pickup Boosters, get two , one as the first thing your guitar plugs into, to enjoy the pickup enhancement. And the second one to drive your signal hotter to you rack and or amps . You may not need to get new pickups, this unique Booster, will illiminate the need of more aggressive sounding pickups.

The Seymour Duncan SFX-07 Shape Shifter is a tremolo pedal that I have experience using with electric guitar. Like pretty much all tremolo pedals, this can be used with other electric instruments as well, but I've only used the pedal for electric guitar, so this review will be focused on this application of the pedal. I'd imagine that most people looking at this review will be interested in it as a guitar pedal anyway. The pedal is an analog one, consisting of 1/4" connections for input and output and requires nine volt power from either a power adapter or a battery. It isn't rackable in any form as it is stomp box. UTILIZATION I didn't find that using the Seymour Duncan SFX-07 Shape Shifter was a hard thing to do at all, as it is generally easy to follow. I've used a lot of different tremolo pedals out there, but even if you don't have as much experience with them I think you'll still be able to figure out this one rather quickly. The SFX-07 has parameters for depth, speed, wave, and rate, which will definitely be familiar parameters for experienced users of different tremolo. However, it is nice to see all four of them in one place as usually you'll see a few them on most pedals. The rate knob can actually be used either as ratio or rate level depending on how you switch it. You've also got a tap tempo button in addition to one for bypass. I don't think users will need a manual for the SFX-07 as it is easy enough to figure out on it's own. SOUND QUALITY The tone of the Seymour Duncan SFX-07 Shape Shifter is pristine in every way. I don't think that I have a bad thing to say about the pedal, as in general I'm a big fan of it's tone quality. I've used the pedal with a Fender Jazzmaster and a Fender Blues Jr amp, which doesn't have any built in effects. I usually use both a Fender Twin Reverb and a '65 Fender Deluxe Reverb for recording, which both have built in tremolo, but for when I don't have built in tremolo, the SFX-07 would be one of my first choices to use. OVERALL OPINION Even though Seymour Duncan is primarily known for making guitar pick ups, it seems as if they know a great deal about what they're doing when it comes to guitar pedals as well. The price of the SFX-07 is more than what most tremolo pedals will cost, but not by much. I'd say that it is definitely worth the extra dough if you're going to be using a lot tremolo, as it really isn't very much more than some tremolo pedals out there that this is almost infinity superior than. The tap tempo alone is worth the money in my opinion. The SFX-07 is overall a great tremolo pedal from an unlikely source.

This is a super high-gain distortion pedal from Seymour Duncan. This company tends to make a wide range of products, of varying quality. This distortion pedal is probably not their best work. It is an analog pedal with an incredible high range of sounds. This is not editable through a PC or Mac, and is not rackable as it's a pedal. UTILIZATION The editing on this pedal is pretty basic. There are five knobs, three of which are EQ (bass, mid and treble), as well as the volume and gain knobs. There is actually quite a lot of adjustment required to find the sounds you want, which makes editing on the fly kind of difficult. For gigs that require less distortion, it's sometimes tough to find a good sound which can be frustrating. SOUND QUALITY This pedal is good at turning any signal into a saturated, high-gain sound. Even if it's a Strat with single-coils running through a clean Fender Tube amp. I'm not sure I really dig that at all. Even the lower gain settings have a hard time getting a relatively clean sound. I guess this pedal just wasn't intended for me, but I like a pedal that's not as over the top as this. I like the sound of my instruments and this pedal basically makes that sound irrelevant. I guess if you are a metal fan, or you need your pristine sounding vintage gear to suddenly turn into a metal monster, then this might be a good purchase. OVERALL OPINION This has a great price, which may explain why it doesn't sound that good. I would recommend it to beginners who play really heavy music. Otherwise, avoid at all costs. It may be cheap but it's still not worth it.