« Best of both passive and active qualities »

Gus G is the current guitar player for Ozzy but he was more known for his work in the Progressive band Firewind. With his growing stature in the music industry it was about time for him to put his name on a set of pickups. Since he is playing with Ozzy now he needed to be able to replicate the tones from the Randy and Jake E Lee eras along with the tones from the Zakk Wylde era. The latter being with active pickups. So he took advantage of a recent Seymour Duncan product to combine the attributes of a set of passives with a set of active pickups. These are the Gus G Fire Blackouts set. They are not like normal Blackouts though. They remind me more of the old Dave Mustaine Livewire pickups. These Gus G pickups take advantage of Seymour Duncans new modular active preamp assembly. These pickups are a set of passive pickups with the Blackout preamp added to them to give them the kick and output of an active pickup. Since the base of the pickup set are a set of passive pickups you get more dynamics and touch sensitivity with a setup like this. Gus G use to use the Duncan Distortion in the bridge and the 59 in the neck and im pretty sure this is what the set is based on with the preamp added to the setup. With the preamp added to the sound you get a bit more high end bite and clarity. The 59 is a super smooth pickup and with the extra bite from the preamp you get a bit more top end in the sound but it can be a bit fizzy at times. The harmonics just jump out with the preamp added. And the tone is thicker overall. The Blackout preamp tends to add more low end I find and it has dont that to these pickups but while keeping the top end clarity and touch sensitivity that the passive pickups had in their original state. A setup like this is good if you are looking for as et of pickups that can do the heavy active sound but still clean up moderately well and respond like a set of passives. These pickups cost about the same as a new set of active pickups and for that you get a more versatile set since these passive based active let you have the good cleans of a passive when you want it with the brutal gain and high end clarity of an active when you want that.