All user reviews for the Seymour Duncan SH-8B Invader Bridge

I use this mic for a year, it is mounted original signature on my strat T. Delonge.

I love the sound it makes, both in clear that big crunch or distortion.
After, it depends on the guitar on which it is mounted. The wood of my guitar is sparse (alder, just bring the guitar to realize that Gibson is too heavy for a human), the clean sounds (well clear ... if there were ) are wonderful.
For obtaining a "clean" with this microphone is virtually impossible. on the other hand, we get downright mind-blowing sounds in the crunch and slight distortion-overdrive. Rockabilly and blues sound is then your friend

But it is on this microphone is made for distortion. Serious when it sends the gain of my amp is over 6 (and yet, I have a Laney VC-30). With a distortion pedal worthy of the name is ecstasy.

A very good micro so I do not regret my choice. In addition, it has a tendency to produce a typed his "TV" (the famous twang) on ​​my guitar ... not bad

The only downside to this microphone is probably its output level that would raise a Burstbucker a microphone girl ... if not, is that good, as long as you do not play jazz

If you need a micro typed "big sound", playing everything from rock (red hot, muse, the metal (in good taste, like RATM or SOAD), and comfortable enough to play the blues or OBN old rock 60's-70's (Hendrix, AC / DC) and the blues or rockabilly (beautiful by reducing the volume of the microphone), this microphone is for you. on the other hand, fans of jazzy sounds, go your way.

I'm only going to review the sound I got by using this pickup through my distortion channel as I hardly ever use a bridge pickup clean. My main amp is a framus cobra 100 watt tube amp and I also use a peavey 5150 as well as a hughes & ketteer triamp

I tried this pickup in two different guitars and got similar results. I first tried it out in a epiphone LP custom which is one of the nicer Epi guitars and A great deal if you don't want to spend the gibson bucks. It has the typical LP construction with a mahogany body, maple neck, and rosewood fret board. In this guitar it was just muddy and grainy sounding. Normally a muddy pickup will just be overly bass heavy and can sometimes be corrected with a bass cut on the amp but this had flubby bass and shrill highs. Working the EQ controls to overcome one problem only seemed to accentuate the other. Metal playing friends of mine suggested I give it a shot but it was not at all like I expected. I thought maybe that guitar just wasn't the right kind for this pickup.

Next I tried it in my Carvin DC127 which has an alder and mahogany body with a maple neck and ebony fret board. This guitar is normally very tight sounding but even it was a bit undefined in the low end with the invader. The ebony board also adds to the brightness of the guitar so the high end from the invader was even more accentuated. Once again I could not use any amount of EQing to get a sound out of it that I liked.

Some people get great results with this pickup so maybe I got a dud or maybe it's just very picky about the woods and set up you have.

The SH-8 Invader is a metal machine that can do nothing else. It has a unique look than other Seymour Duncans. It has 12 black oxide cap screws on the top of it. If the screws are this big that tells you how big and powerful the magnets are. With these huge magnets and screws you must look out of string pull. I noticed my sustain was was not as good as it was with a lower output pickup. String pull is when the magnetics of the pickup effect the strings. The magnets tug on the strings and stop them from vibrating freely. This lowers the sustain of the note being played on the string. Even with all the histrionics with the huge screws and what not the pickup is not noisy at all. Because the screws on this pickup are so big there is no tremolo size offered. The screws can pick up the strings equally well on both sizes. The Invader is a very hot bass heavy pickup. With these features you have to make sure you are putting it in the right type of guitar. You want to put it in a guitar that will balance out the sound. With the bass heavy voicing of the Invader you may want to put it in a slightly brighter wooded guitar to make the sound neutral. If you put this bassy pickup into an already bassy guitar the sound may become un-useable. The sound will be dark and muddy and totally undefined. With these characteristics it is un-useable in the neck position also. It is far too bassy for the neck position which already produces a bass heavy sound no matter what the pickup is. If you are looking for a pickup for the bridge position of your bright guitar and you only play metal this may be the pickup for you.

Oh the famed invader pickup!! Made famous most likely due to James Hetfield using it back in the day on master of puppets. Can be coil tapped if you get the 4 conductor version. I've fortunately been able to use both the neck and bridge pickups together in a Jackson Stars Rhoads V. I have not tried it tapped.

as a neck pickup (CLEAN):
Not bad. Not shimmery or clean-like either. Though it is lower output than the bridge pickup. Clean it doesn't break up if you don't want it to, depending on where you set the height. Of course the magnets are HUGE, so the pickup height should definitely be set properly.

as a neck pickup (DIRTY):
The distortion is very modern with the ceramic pickup. I guess the best way to put it is gritty and a little bit crispy, yet thick at the same time. It's a very stiff sound, not very saggy and saturated at all, which, depending on your uses, can be a good thing.

as a bridge pickup (CLEAN):
Clean this pickup is definitely no fender single coil. It breaks up depending on your right hand technique, which is good for some. Though I personally don't mind break up, this type of break up is not what I'd prefer. Again, like the neck pickup the distortion sound is very stiff, even though it's very bassy it has a very specific sound. After owning the set for over 2 years I can almost hear it distinctly on songs/records or guitars. I wouldn't say this is a dynamic pickup, it doesn't clean up well with the volume rolled down, nor does it sound very good on low/medium gain.

Overall I think these are a great metal pickup and you're looking for a very tight sound with some grit. The clean is only average and not great. So it's not a very versatile pickup. On the positive, no matter how much gain you throw at it, it will stay tight.

I tried a microphone with a particular grain, a big win for fat saturation well. Not wanting to fall into the coldness of an EMG active or other micro surgery, I began a search for a little passive microwave Vellu so to speak.
To summarize I needed a powerful bridge pickup, hot, passive, making the rounds of all manufacturers of micro, in SeymourDuncan minterpelle something "like he has a name of this killer mike: Invader".

I mount the mic to replace the bridge pickup in my Gibson LP Gothic.
my config is simple, just plug into a Les Paul Bogner Alchemist 112
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Sound clear: powerful micro crunh easily on the clean, ultimately the sound is aggressive, in some case can be intressant. well I have to buy for crystal clear sound so clear sound correct.

the crunch, then it's magical, micro well sought not to attack more or less VLOC on the ropes. It happens easily move from its hard rock "old school" a little mushy, warm, has its type blues.

The first finding its saturated with EQ while at noon, the sound is really low load, few rglage APRS, I find a loud, bold, warm, and quite specific on. for those interested in "neo metal" I do not think this is great. that is either a riff or solo the mic is awesome, for the "mad shredder" was going to lack some precision, but that's not what I want.

Date:
- Good value quality price (purchase less than 80 new at ThoTho
- Clear sound correct (even when it is not his first goal)
- A saturation killer
- To do again I repeat this microphone.

I will pair it with a Duncan Jazz neck pickup to see what history has given.

I've been using this pickup for a few weeks now. I installed it into a Switch Wild One guitar, which is a solid body guitar made out of "Vibracell" material (plastic) with a single humbucking pickup in the bridge. I had planned on changing the pickup before I even got the guitar because I'm a pretty big fan of Seymour Duncan pickups, but the Switch pickup sounded pretty good, better than I was expecting, so I waited a while to change it out which turned out to be a good thing, as I had gotten used to the sound of the old pickup.

The first thing I noticed is that the output of this pickup is much higher. That is to be expected, as the Invader is designed to be a high output passive pickup. Despite the higher output, it sounds as if the noise that this pickup makes is actually lower. Perhaps the noise is masked somewhat by the higher output, but I've listened closely to the pickup without playing it, and I can't hear anything.

I wired the pickup to the coil tap switch just like the old one, and what I've noticed is that, when playing the guitar clean, the output drop from humbucker to single-coil is more than it was with the old pickup. This makes sense to me though; if there are two coils and both have hotter outputs, then obviously dropping one out will make a bigger difference because you're losing more output. Anyway, I say this is noticeable when playing clean because when you throw a couple effects into the mix, it becomes a moot point.

One of the great things about this pickup is that it seems to be more flexible because of the higher output. Some of my effects change their character quite a bit when I use the volume knob on the guitar, and when I tried the new pickup, it immediately threw the pedals into overdrive, almost a bit too much. The range of the volume knob has basically been extended.

Some hot humbuckers seem to get a bit dirty at full volume, even when played clean, but this pickup sounds clean to me. Cleaner than the Hot Rails for Strat that I have in my other guitar (which isn't very dirty at all). Even when playing hard, it's just not dirty, just nice and loud. Traits like this are what always impressed me and made me come back to Duncan pickups again and again.

This pickup at full volume thrashes the Little Big Muff and tears my Synth Mangler a new one. Sometimes I have to dial it down a bit for the Synth Mangler, but it's always been useful to adjust the volume knob with the Mangler; now it is even more so. And yet the pickup is good for just about anything. It's got a great, full clean sound.

I've heard some people say that once you put an Invader into your guitar, you won't want to play another guitar without one. I can see why they say that. It's a fantastic pickup. For me personally though, I'm not going to be replacing every pickup in every guitar with an Invader, because that's just not my style. If I didn't like trying new pickups, this would be a good one to stick with though. I'm pretty sure I like it a little more than the Hot Rails, which I already loved. Duncan is simply the brand I go to when I look for pickups, and this is another example why.

The pickup was a bit of a surprise to me, for the reason that I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. You can read about the pickup and Duncan's recommendations for applications of it on their website, but from reading that, I was almost expecting this hot humbucker to be dirty. I'd say it's as clean as a humbucker gets, which is a great thing. It's simply LOUD. I think the only hotter pickup you could get from Duncan would be an active.

I can't say enough about how much I like this pickup. It's just great. It almost seems a shame that Seymour Duncan recommends it for heavier styles of music, because I feel it could be suitable for just about anything with a simple tweak of the volume knob.

Oh, I almost forgot: the single-coil sound is great! It sounds pretty much exactly like a nice Strat on the bridge, very bright and yet full. Crystal clear sound. The old pickup was good but didn't sound too great as a single-coil. But this pickup sounds fantastic!

I can't ask for anything more from such a reasonable priced pickup. No real flaws at all.