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King Loudness « Fully Shred! »
Published on 04/18/11 at 19:01I purchased this pickup in early 2004 to go in one of my Yamaha RGX superstrats that I was restoring for a project guitar. I didn't know very much about replacement pickups, so I opted to go for the Full Shred based solely on the name. I knew it would be higher output, so I figured it would be perfect for the guitar in question. I purchased one off of a local seller and once I finished sourcing all of the parts for the guitar, I installed the pickup in the bridge position. As the name implies, it was definitely a high output metal machine to be sure.
The big thing I dislike about high output pickups is that I find them to be one trick ponies as far as what they can do sound wise. I noticed some of this with the Full Shred as I got to use it more and more, but given the name, I shouldn't have been surprised that it was designed to be high gain and high octane. I used it with various solid state Peavey and Yamaha amps mainly, and at that period of time, I was getting into using quite a bit of amplifier distortion. It definitely held its own in (sometimes ridiculously) high gain applications. The nice thing about this pickup is that it wasn't absurdly scooped out like a lot of high output pickups are, but rather it's more of a neutral EQ curve that you can adjust with your amp.
It definitely didn't excel at lower gain tones or clean tones, but I wasn't banking on it to do that, so I'm not being too picky. After a few years of using it in standard tuning, I set the guitar up to use as a low tuned guitar (dropped B tuning usually) and this is where the Full Shred really came into bloom. The low notes had a ton of saturation, but they were also quite articulate and the sound remained clear even with very low tuned chords. Compared to the Duncan Invader, I found it to be more articulate and I found that it was less muddy than the Invader as well.
All in all, the Seymour Duncan Full Shred is a fantastic pickup for higher gain applications. You can use it with gobs of distortion and it holds up like a charm. It's a one trick pony to be sure, but for that trick, you can't really go wrong with this pickup. Shred on!
The big thing I dislike about high output pickups is that I find them to be one trick ponies as far as what they can do sound wise. I noticed some of this with the Full Shred as I got to use it more and more, but given the name, I shouldn't have been surprised that it was designed to be high gain and high octane. I used it with various solid state Peavey and Yamaha amps mainly, and at that period of time, I was getting into using quite a bit of amplifier distortion. It definitely held its own in (sometimes ridiculously) high gain applications. The nice thing about this pickup is that it wasn't absurdly scooped out like a lot of high output pickups are, but rather it's more of a neutral EQ curve that you can adjust with your amp.
It definitely didn't excel at lower gain tones or clean tones, but I wasn't banking on it to do that, so I'm not being too picky. After a few years of using it in standard tuning, I set the guitar up to use as a low tuned guitar (dropped B tuning usually) and this is where the Full Shred really came into bloom. The low notes had a ton of saturation, but they were also quite articulate and the sound remained clear even with very low tuned chords. Compared to the Duncan Invader, I found it to be more articulate and I found that it was less muddy than the Invader as well.
All in all, the Seymour Duncan Full Shred is a fantastic pickup for higher gain applications. You can use it with gobs of distortion and it holds up like a charm. It's a one trick pony to be sure, but for that trick, you can't really go wrong with this pickup. Shred on!