Seymour Duncan unveils the Mark Holcomb Alpha & Omega pickups, a pair of humbuckers ideal for progressive metal.
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These new pickups are especially designed to meet the guitar virtuoso’s tone requirements, having just the right amount of articulation and output to give Mark his ideal tone as he plays for the band Periphery.
Periphery is not your straightforward “chug chug” metal band, employing a mixture of technically complex rhythms and quick switching between low frequency riffs and high note melodies. Their unique style requires pickups that have the right amount of flexibility without compromising tone, and so Mark and the Seymour Duncan team worked closely to achieve the artist’s demand for precision, quality and versatility. This resulted in two humbucker pickups that are specifically designed to handle Mark’s neck position and bridge position tone needs.
Instead of simply having two identical pickups for the bridge and neck position, they specifically designed the two pickups for their respective positions, and each one ended up being truly distinct from each other, while still being able to blend well together when in middle position. According to Mark, the two pickups are really unique, satisfying the goals that he and the Seymour Duncan had in mind when they started the signature pickup project.
The Alpha neck pickup is designed to be different from the usual vintage-style neck models, combining the fat glassy sound of traditional neck pickups with the improved pick attack and fretting of modern bridge pickups. This makes the Alpha a pseudo-bridge pickup in the neck position, or a hybrid neck-bridge pickup as the artist wants to call it. It is said to be completely different from any of the other neck pickups that Seymour Duncan offers, featuring ceramic magnets that give it a distinct artist approved voicing.
The Omega bridge pickup is designed to be super aggressive and percussive, with snarly growl in the lows and mids. The official press release say, “It’s aggressive but it also has lots of clarity and brightness, which cuts through whether you’re playing sophisticated chords, complex single-note lines or intense solos”. Mark wanted to hear every note when he plays chords because this is a big part of his playing style, and to handle this they upped the Omega’s clarity and brightness without compromising the power and punch that he also needs.
See the official Alpha & Omega pickups video demo below:
The new Seymour Duncan Mark Holcomb Alpha & Omega Pickups are now available for $325, and each set comes hand signed by Mark Holcomb with a special USB drive featuring albums Juggernaut: Alpha and Juggernaut: Omega stickers and collectable picks. You can visit Seymour Duncan for further details.
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