Inspired by alternative metal guitar tones, Seymour Duncan's active alt.metal Blackout pickups are designed for heavy riffs in lower tunings.
The alt.metal bridge retains the energy and output of the original Blackout, but emphasizes the percussive quality of palm-muted notes. The alt.metal neck is designed to ensure perfect clean tones, while transforming with aggressive mids and increased sustain under higher gain settings.
The alt.metal Blackout set includes all necessary installation hardware. alt.metal Blackouts are available in passive mount for 6-string guitars and in both passive and active soapbar mount configurations for 7-string models.
alt.metal Blackouts® Overview with Ryan "Fluff" Bruce
The in-demand Nashville session player unveils what comes with him when he leaves the studio.
Recording artist, hit songwriter, and sought-after session player Jedd Hughes invited PG’s John Bohlinger to his soundcheck before his gig at Nashville’s 3rd and Lindsley. Hughes came in with a home-made T-style, a vintage hollowbody, and some custom acoustics. Check it out.
Brought to you by D’Addario: https://ddar.io/wykyk-rr
Homebrew Tele
Hughes built his Tele using a one-piece lightweight ash body with a Gene Parsons long-pull B-bender. Hughes shaped the maple neck to a soft V profile using StewMac tools. The pickups were both designed by Ron Ellis: There’s a 50B in the bridge and a Killa in the neck position to match the 50B. The harness is from a 1955 Fender lap steel. All of his electrics are strung with D'Addario .010-.046s.
This 1967 Guild ST-403 Studio hollowbody was chopped to make room for full-size humbuckers.
Hughes' Acoustics
This 2004 DeGruchy was built specifically for Hughes, made to replicate a golden-era Martin D-45. The acoustics are strung with D'Addario .012-.052 sets, which Hughes strikes with Fender medium picks. All acoustics have K&K Sound Pure Mini pickups running through them.
Hughes’ second-favorite acoustic is this slope shoulder DeGruchy.
For a nylon string, Hughes goes with his old gut string Del Vecchio.
Party For Two
Hughes uses two amps combined, in a non-stereo setup. Amp number one is his 1952 Gibson GA-20, which has been rehoused in a Tweed Deluxe cab with a Celestion G12-65.
Number two is his tried-and-true 1962 Vox AC30.
The Boardroom
Hughes runs a larger board for his electric and a smaller one for his acoustic guitars. The electric board includes a Prescription Electronics Experience, Clark Gainster, a prototype XTS Shadow Box, Greer Southland, Dunlop volume pedal (with tuner out), VFE Old School tremolo, Boss PS-5 Super Shifter, Guyatone PS-023, EHX Deluxe Memory Man, Echo Fix EF-P2 Spring Reverb, and finally a Shaw Audio Vacuum Tube Splitter Buffer, which splits two mono lines to the amps.
Hughes runs his acoustics into a Grace Design FELiX2 preamp. From there, it hits a Guyatone PS-023, a Universal Audio Golden Reverberator, and a Boss TU-2.
Shop Jedd Hughes' Rig
Vox AC30
Dunlop DVP3 Volume (X) Volume and Expression Pedal
Boss PS-6 Harmonist Pedal
Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man Analog Delay / Chorus / Vibrato Pedal
Grace Design FELiX 2 Instrument Preamp/Blender - Silver
Universal Audio Golden Reverberator
Boss TU-2
D'Addario NYXL1046 NYXL Nickel Wound Electric Guitar Strings - .010-.046 Regular
This pedal offers dual engines, extended IR capability, and a powerful tri-core CPU.
The original BigSky pedal was released in 2013, becoming an icon by redefining how guitariststhe world over thought about reverb, and the new BigSky MX expands on the original design inevery facet. With a super fast tri-core 800 MHz ARM processor, BigSky MX can run two reverbalgorithms at once and route or pan the audio in a number of different ways. The new advancedconvolution engine allows a huge ten seconds of stereo impulse response playback per instance, along with full IR editing and a suite of custom long captures of classic studio tools and oddballvintage gear. Many of the new reverb algorithms are brand-new from the ground up, and weretuned using a state-of-the-art gradient descent algorithm to remove any unwanted artifacts andringing. A crisp OLED display provides clear information about the currently loaded preset, whichmakes managing dual reverb patches a snap.
BigSky MX features stereo I/O and discrete ClassA JFET input preamps, EXP/TRS MIDI, DIN MIDI and USB-C for connection to Strymon’s Nixie 2software editor.“We’ve been working on this thing for the better part of four years”, said Gregg Stock, Strymon’sCEO and co-founder. “It’s been a labor of love, and we knew that the legions of original BigSkyfans were counting on us to get it right the first time. In the end it exceeded all of ourexpectations, and we’re really happy with how it turned out.” Stock continues, “The 12 enginesin BigSky MX produce the absolute best ambiences we’ve ever made, and the ability to run twoengines at once and the impulse stuff is a major step forward.”
Pete Celi, Strymon’s co-founder and DSP guru adds “playing around with BigSky MX duringdevelopment has been a blast. The new algorithms are bigger, wider and cleaner than anythingwe’ve been able to achieve in the past, and impulse response playback is a welcome addition.We’ve included our very own long captures of some classic studio devices and some oddballvintage units collected by one of our engineers too, so there is an entire world of creative reverbin there to explore”.
The BigSky MX was designed and is manufactured in Los Angeles in the USA, and is available now directly from Strymon and from dealers worldwide for $679 US.
Strymon BigSky MX: Next-gen Reverb & Celestial Space-shaping — A Worthy Heir?
More info at https://www.strymon.net.