« Excellent neck pickup! »

The Seymour Duncan Jazz, along with its sister pickup the JB, makes up one half of what is possibly the most widely used pickup set from Seymour Duncan. I purchased a 2009 Jackson King V Select (USA made) that had this pickup combo. I was less than impressed with the JB in this particular guitar, but the Jazz was a different story. It really had a nice clear sound that was neither muddy nor thin. The nice thing about this pickup is that it is able to go from very clean jazzy tones to very high gain applications for rock/metal/shred and not lose any clarity or definition. I often would channel switch on my amplifier to a very fat sounding clean tone and the Jazz was great for comping and single note lead lines. Playing complex chord voicings on a clean tone were a breeze, as the clarity that this pickup has allowed each note to ring through clearly.

The dirty tones were great as well. In my opinion, this pickup has a very tight response that is wonderful for shred type lead work. I was using it in conjunction with a Mesa Boogie Mark Five and got very thick and tight lead tones a la John Petrucci or Steve Vai. Again though, even on dirtier tones, the sound has a killer clarity that allows even the most blindingly fast passages to cut through a mix very well.

This pickup suffers from none of the inconsistency of the JB either, which is a plus. I've tried it in a few guitars over the years and noticed a great set of tones regardless of guitar brand, construction type, or woods used. There obviously will be some differences from guitar to guitar but it is a much more consistent pickup than the JB to me.

If you're looking for nice, thick neck position tones that still have good clarity with both clean and dirty tones, give the Jazz a shot for sure!