Good video on Seymour Duncan

[David Schwab]

BackBeat Show #9 - Seymour Duncan on Vimeo

Some great shop shots too.

[copperheadroads]

Very nice
Thanks David

[CRU JONES]

Maricela Juarez! Is anyone else stoked?

[StarryNight]

interesting to hear the connection with Jeff Beck. Seymour looks like he's been influenced by Beck's style quite a bit. Great vid!
I wish post and editing was a little better.

[David Schwab]

interesting to hear the connection with Jeff Beck.

What did you think "JB" stood for?

[big_teee]

What did you think "JB" stood for?

What is surprising to me is that the JB was one of his first commercial Offerings, and he started with a 16k pickup.
You would think the lower wind stuff would be a logical place to start.
My first pickups I bought were the HotRod Set.
Still seems like a strange match to me.
But, I'm more of a low wind guy.
B_T

[David Schwab]

What is surprising to me is that the JB was one of his first commercial Offerings, and he started with a 16k pickup.

Well he was selling the set that he made for Beck. I'm not a big fan of those over-wound pickups either.

[soundmasterg]

You have to remember that when he and Dimarzio started out, people wanted something different than the vintage style, low wind pickups. That is why he came out with something like the JB early on. Personally I don' tlike the JB much, though I do like the Full Shred pickups a lot, but only for metal and rock stuff. For blues its vintage all the way for me.

Cool video David, thanks for posting!

Greg

[David Schwab]

You have to remember that when he and Dimarzio started out, people wanted something different than the vintage style, low wind pickups. That is why he came out with something like the JB early on. Personally I don' tlike the JB much, though I do like the Full Shred pickups a lot, but only for metal and rock stuff. For blues its vintage all the way for me.

Well that's true, and players wanted hot pickups since the amps back then didn't have a lot of gain. Clearly DiMarzio had made a big splash with the Super Distortion.

Cool video David, thanks for posting!

Someone had posted it over at TalkBass, so I had to bring it over here!

[copperheadroads]

Actually JB stands for Jazz Blues

[David Schwab]

Actually JB stands for Jazz Blues

According to who?

The neck pickup in that set is the "Jazz Neck." So the JB could be the "Jazz Bridge," except it's not wound like a jazz pickup, and since the neck pickup is not the JN, why use an acronym?

And the "EVH" stood for "evenly spaced harmonics", right?

This was well known info for years. Seymour made that pickup for Beck, who didn't like it in the end. It was installed on the Tele-Gib. Eventually you need to come up with a meaning for the initials "JB".

Just doing a little Googling turned this up. This is the way I have always heard it as well.

Seymour Duncan JB myth! - Marshall Amp Forum

The story is that Jeff Beck had his PAF stolen by a guitar tech, so Seymour Duncan designed the JB pickup for him.

Just adding to what's already been said...

Jeff ended up not liking the pup but SD kept the design since he personally liked it so much.

This "Jazz, Blues" acronym is just legal balognia. Jeffie wouldn't be too thrilled if SD was profiting off his name w/o getting his piece of the pie too.

Apparently as the story goes, Seymour Duncan heard that the original PAF pickups that Jeff Beck had on one of his guitars were switched by a dishonest guitar technician, and Beck was distraught over it. As a token of his respect and friendship, Seymour Duncan designed a pickup for Jeff Beck out of some parts of a pair of broken early Gibson Humbucker's that he took from a Gibson Flying V Guitar. Seymour Duncan rewired and "hot rodded" the pickups, and later put the pickups that he designed into a Telecaster body. The bridge pickup was the now famous SH-4 JB Humbucking Pickup, and the neck pickup was a JM or (John Milner) Jazz Model in the neck position. By the way, the JB in the SH-4 JB does stand for Jeff Beck, although it is frequently also called the Jazz Blues Humbucker, and the JM stands for John Milner (although more frequently referred to as the Jazz Model Humbucker) who was a character in the movie American Grafitti who was into hot rods, which happens to be one of Jeff Beck's passions. But enough with all the trivia. Seymour Duncan called the guitar that he made and gave to his friend Jeff Beck a "Tele-Gib" because of the obvious marriage of different parts of both guitar brands. The current Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB is an outgrowth of the pickup that Seymour Duncan designed for Jeff Beck back in the early 1970's.

[David Schwab]

JB = Jeff Beck? - Seymour Duncan User Group Forums

Taken from the SD pages...the Jeff Beck...I mean Jazz/Blues Tele-Gib story...

After sending his favorite Les Paul® to a shady repairman who switched out the P.A.F.’s for newer, squealing, pickups, Jeff came to Seymour for help and advice. Seymour repaired Jeff’s Les Paul, and then set about creating a special guitar for Jeff with a pair of pickups that would capture Jeff’s amazing ability to coax a wide range of tones out of his axe.

The result was a guitar that Seymour gave to Jeff as a gift. The body and neck were clearly Telecaster®. But the pickups were two re-wound humbuckers made from broken P.A.F.s Seymour rescued from Lonnie Mack’s Flying V®. Seymour called the guitar a “Tele-Gib,” and nicknamed the bridge pickup “JB” and the neck pickup “JM,” after the hot rod racer, “John Milner,” in the classic film, American Graffiti. (Eventually, “JM” would change to “Jazz Model,” which is what it’s called today.) Jeff used the Tele-Gib on his amazing 1975 release, Blow By Blow, where it gained notoriety for the haunting volume swells heard on “Cause We Ended As Lovers,” which Jeff dedicated to Roy Buchanon. Interestingly, it was Seymour who introduced Jeff to Roy a few months prior.

The JB bridge pickup became very popular, very quick. Soon, many of England’s top guitarists, including more than a few legendary names, sought out Seymour’s “JB Mod” for their guitars. They found that the JB gave increased output (16.4K Ohms) without sounding harsh or dark, like other high-output pickups of the mid-‘70s. When Seymour returned to the USA the next year, his reputation as a pickup designer and the JB’s reputation as a great pickup preceded him. And the rest was history.

[Ronsonic]

For many years, like almost two decades, the JB was MY pickup of choice. I've since moved on, the thing is a one-trick-pony. It is one hell of a trick, but still a bit limited. Before that came along, I was de-winding Dimarzio SDs to get something usable.

[copperheadroads]

According to who?

The neck pickup in that set is the "Jazz Neck." So the JB could be the "Jazz Bridge," except it's not wound like a jazz pickup, and since the neck pickup is not the JN, why use an acronym?

And the "EVH" stood for "evenly spaced harmonics", right?

This was well known info for years. Seymour made that pickup for Beck, who didn't like it in the end. It was installed on the Tele-Gib. Eventually you need to come up with a meaning for the initials "JB".

Just doing a little Googling turned this up. This is the way I have always heard it as well.

Seymour Duncan JB myth! - Marshall Amp Forum
Theres quite a bit of stuff on the net about this especially on the duncan site & the jb was made for Jeff Beck & everybody knows it stands for Jeff Beck
But its not an signature pickup

here's a post from Evan Skopp
" Like Jeremy said, when Seymour built his now-famous Tele-Gib for Jeff -- the one heard on "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" on Blow By Blow, the bridge pickup was nicknamed "Jeff Beck" and the neck pickup was nicknamed "John Milner." Those were later shorted to JB and JM.

We've never had an official pickup endorsement deal with Mr. Beck. So, when someone asks us what JB and JM stand for, we say "Jazz Blues" and "Jazz Model."

Some folks call the JB the "Jeff Beck." And while there's an historical connection between the JB pickup and the man with those initials, any brand name connection is not coming from us... and never has."
__________________

[David Schwab]

here's a post from Evan Skopp
" Like Jeremy said, when Seymour built his now-famous Tele-Gib for Jeff -- the one heard on "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" on Blow By Blow, the bridge pickup was nicknamed "Jeff Beck" and the neck pickup was nicknamed "John Milner." Those were later shorted to JB and JM.

We've never had an official pickup endorsement deal with Mr. Beck. So, when someone asks us what JB and JM stand for, we say "Jazz Blues" and "Jazz Model."

Some folks call the JB the "Jeff Beck." And while there's an historical connection between the JB pickup and the man with those initials, any brand name connection is not coming from us... and never has."
__________________

But that's what it was named for, regardless what it means today. This is the legalese answer, not the real answer. We all know what the EVH pickup was, and who it was originally made for. Same is true of the JB.

And come on now, is this pickup REALLY good for jazz or blues? Not in the very least. If Skopp said it meant "Jelly Bean" would you believe that? Don't be naïve.