Seymour Duncan Black Winter Humbucker Pickup

For extreme playing styles requiring brutal distortion and aggressive saturation, the demonic Black Winter humbucker has the most cruel tone around.

$109.00

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    6 x  
    $18.17
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    4 x  
    $27.25
Overall User Ratings (based on 6 ratings)
  • Overall:
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Sound:
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Features:
    4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Ease of Use:
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Quality:
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Value:
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Manufacturer Support:
    5 out of 5 stars
  • The Wow Factor:
    5 out of 5 stars
Overall: 5 out of 5 stars
(6) (see rating details)
Submitted August 23, 2013 by Mark Y in Porter, TX

"Black Metal, Death Metal, Thrash & CLEAN???"

Overall: 5 out of 5 stars
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Verified Customer zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
I got these pickup after seeing a few videos online. I love how articulate the pickups are. They deliver crushing distortions but with a little volume adjustment and eq settings you can get a full spectrum of distortions. Anything from soft rock to bluesy crunch all the way to that crushing metal sound you know you are going to buy these for. I was worried about these pickups because they are made for metal. I play a lot of clean tones and did not think these would clean up well. I was wrong. These pickups sound wonderful clean. Sparkling highs, crisp mids and well balanced lows. The versatility of these pickups are amazing. I bought mine here at zzsounds and I highly recommend the pickups and zzsounds. both are amazing,

Musical Background:

Playing for 15+ years I play guitar, bass keyboard and Sing

Musical Style:

I mostly play metal styles but I play a lot of clean tones as well.
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Submitted December 25, 2020 by Jimmy M

"The best pickups for thrash metal & beyond!!"

Overall: 5 out of 5 stars
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I’ve been playing guitar off/on since the early 90’s; I’ve tried/had different guitars from different manufacturers with different pickup configurations and these are, by far, my favorites. I, mainly, play music ranging from hard rock to thrash metal and these pickups more than get the job done. I have a set installed in my favorite Les Paul & another set in my RR1 and they do not disappoint as they gave a serious kick in the pants to both guitars. My LP, in particular, is probably the most versatile. Roll back some of the gain & you get nice, bluesy tones and if you go full throttle there’s all kinds of gain there for thrash & extreme metal styles. Tone-wise, they’re nicely well-balanced and help give you a big sound which will easily stand out in either a band or recording mix. Whether clean or heavily distorted, these pickups are warm and articulate so your playing, for better or worse (if your playing is sloppy) will be easily heard and decipherable. I’m now about to get a third set for an RR Pro I just got and can’t wait to get them in!
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Submitted June 6, 2017 by Steven F in Burlington, KY

"KVLT and Surprisingly Versatile! "

Overall: 5 out of 5 stars
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These are fantastic metal pickups! They're similar to Duncan's SH-6 set, but with mids rolled back a bit. Going though a Peavey 6505 MH, they sound killer. The bridge is very crunchy and the neck makes for smooth leads. The cleans are surprisingly good as well. The highs are tame enough to make for smooth sounding jazz leads and big, warm chords. These pickups are marketed for the black metal market and they deliver, plus much more! They're great for thrash, death, and black metal. Additionally, jazz and classical sound pretty great though them. Not to mention, the Old English Seymour Duncan logo looks pretty cool.

Musical Background:

Hobbyist for nearly 10 years

Musical Style:

Metal, classical, jazz
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Submitted April 6, 2015 by Oliver S in Harlingen, TX

"Black Winter = Awesomeness"

Overall: 4.5 out of 5 stars
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This review has been selected by our experts as particularly helpful.
I was always interested in these pickups after seeing tons of videos about it. I am not really a "metalhead" but when I get pumped up from listening to Mastodon or Stick to Your Guns or whoever, these pickups did the trick.
Sound
The sound from these pickups are INCREDIBLE. You can get a nice tight attack for 80's metal, do some sludge metal, do some chugga-chugga-woo-woo metal, a bunch of nice high-output metal; or if you want to dampen the sound a bit, just roll the tone a bit (or a lot as I do) and you still get a nice overdrive/distortion Gibson sound. But overall (since i only have one HH guitar that have these pickup in them) I just mostly use these to get a nice output sound whenever I want to play a similar metal-style.
Features
These are Seymour Duncans. They can have a very easy setup (straight to a volume and tone potentiometes) or you can use these pickups for a high blowout metal sound AND set it up with coil-split/coil-tap thanks to the extra wires SD puts with most of their humbuckers. I just used the normal wires as I used these pickups for my first guitar modification (on a Flying V copy - it sounds x1000 better with these).
Ease of Use
I'm not use to using 500k pots (I prefer 250k since I get a bunch of different sounds with a small turn from my strat, also loaded with SD Hot Rails) since you either leave the volume around 8-10 to get the best from the high output or 2-7 to stop getting that nice chug sound. I know most chugga-chugga-woo-woo players just keep all of the knobs at 10; but with a little experimenting you can still get a nice chunky sound if you roll the tone knob to about 3-6 without losing sound. I think everyone knows that, but it's just a fun fact just in case you would think these pickups are only made for metal.
Quality
I got what I paid for - super high quality, made in 'Murica, great sounding pickups that I do not regret getting. I've poked the magnets (my dog started to lick the pickups when I wasn't paying attention to the guitar) and everything and I am pretty sure these pickups will last years, maybe even forever.
Value
These pickups are worth the $179.95. I mostly go to zZounds since I'm a rebel and hate paying for tax and shipping (sorry Guitar Center) and this has been my best purchase yet!
Manufacturer Support
I haven't had to deal with zZounds or Seymour Duncan about support, but I know zZounds has helped me when I have returned many things (which I am sorry about) but these I don't think I will ever need to return these - nor do I think I can return pickups? I'll have to read about returns (but I'm not returning these).
The Wow Factor
The wow factor are these pickups in general - the fancy fancy yet brutal Seymour Duncan logo, the versatility of the pickups and the great chugga-chugga-woo-woo sound that this pickup creates.

Musical Background:

Ten year guitar vet, also plays viola and French Horn, now guitar hobbyist

Musical Style:

Alternative rock (similar to Dinosaur Jr.), experimental/progressive-rock (Chon, Pmtoday) some emo and some sludge metal (Mastod
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Submitted April 14, 2018 by Levi D in Wheatland, WY

"Great sounds."

Overall: 5 out of 5 stars
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Verified Customer zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
I really like this pickup. It took me a minute to get used to it compared to my SD EMTY blackouts.

Musical Background:

B.C. Rich MT sig w/ SD EMTY blackouts, Ibanez RGD320 w/ SD Black Winter(B) and Sentient(N)

Musical Style:

Metal
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Submitted February 10, 2021 by a customer from protonmail.com

"The best"

Overall: 5 out of 5 stars
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Verified Customer zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
These are the only pickups I play. I load them into every guitar. If you like death metal, or black metal, these are what you were looking for.
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