Seymour Duncan TB-16 59 Custom Hybrid Guitar Pickup - Black Cover for Electric Guitar - Perfect for Rock, Blues, and Jazz Performances

I’ve been on a long tone seeking journey with my main guitar - Ernie Ball Music Man Artist Series Dustin Kensrue signature Stingray - for years now. I mostly record at home or in studios, and I love the feel of my guitar, but the stock pickups always seemed sterile.So, I turned to the trusty ol’ Seymour Duncan JB for a while. It was honky in the low mids, brittle in the high end, had double the DC resistance as the stock pickup, and didn’t seem to like downtuning to drop C. After some time with that pickup and doing some research, I installed a Seymour Duncan Pegasus, which had some familiar characteristics as the JB, but more controlled and refined. If the JB was a wild teenager who drank, smoked and got tattoos based on impulse, then the Pegasus was that same being, but more mature, refined, and wrapped in a nice tuxedo.Tonally, the Pegasus had the right mids and treble for my tastes, but still had a fairly boomy bass and a lower mid punch that I wasn’t quite jiving with.Next, I installed a Seymour Duncan Nazgûl. At first, I perceived the change in tone as an improvement. I loved the tonal balance of super tight bass, really pleasant mids, and not a shrill high end. The pickup sounded fairly higher output than the Pegasus, which translated to a hyper compressed sound and feel. It was squishy, if that makes any sense.So I eventually went back to stock configuration while researching other pickups when I stumbled upon the classic Keith Merrow pickup shoot out video that sold me on the Nazgûl and Pegasus in the first place. I’d always skipped over the ‘59 Custom Hybrid, simply because in my experience, the ‘59 was always muddy, and utilized in blues and classic rock rock.As I was reading pickup charts and listening to the video in the background, the tone I was after suddenly surprised me. I flipped back to the video to find out what I was hearing. I was shocked to find it was the ‘59/C. I ordered one immediately. And now that it’s installed, I LOVE IT.99% of what I play is early 2000s inspired high gain metalcore, nu metal, melodic death metal, and very riff-centric, chuggy, chordal stuff. This pickup has, to my ears, the perfect tonal balance of attack without brittle or shrill overtones, PERFECT midrange growl, and tight but full sounding lows.There is so much body, but clarity at the same time. Chords, even with high gain are harmonically rich, well balanced and blend perfectly with bass tones by filling the midrange frequency spectrum in just the right way. Single note picking riffs, gallops, dissonant chords and leads punch through the mix without making your ears bleed, and still contain a complex and pleasing roundness or fullness that, with other pickups, leaned either to the too chonky or too ear piercing side of the tonal scales.In terms of feel, which is so incredibly important to me, the ‘59/C Hybrid might be THE perfect pickup for my heavy handed playing style. It’s dynamic, yet still juuuuuuust smooth enough to even out my aggressive technique. I really like to dig into the strings when palm muting or hitting big open chords.I’ve only just covered high gain tones with this pickup so far. It’s fantastic for other applications as well. It can easily do the Van Halen thing, the AC/DC thing, and dare I say country thing. It cleans up so well when rolling back the tone knob, and on high gain settings with the volume knob tied back to 80% or 90% open, is even tighter and can do the super downtuned djent stuff.I have not coil split this pickup, but every rebate I’ve read says it’s fantastic. And I believe that.For me, this is THE pickup I didn’t know I needed. I cannot recommend this pickup enough, especially your tone seeking something similar to Underoath, Norma Jean, Killswitch Engage, Sevendust, Thrice, etc type tones.10/10 HIGHLY RECOMMEND