Hello there, back again with another guitar pickup review for you! This time we will look at one of the legendary guitar pickups by possibly the best guitar pickup company, Seymour Duncan! Although Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis is not a new design, it was one of the most unique and pioneering pickup designs of its time.
Table of Contents
In this Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis review, I will provide you with a brief Seymour Duncan company information and also introduce you to this wonderful Parallel Axis humbucker pickup as well as with a detailed demo and comparison video.
TL;DR
Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis is one of the most unique guitar pickups around. Although it’s not a recent design by the legendary pickup builder, it has managed to earn a following in the guitar community.
It definitely adds clarity and definition to the notes both on chords and single-line playing. Often guitar players expect miracles when they replace their pickups, however, the expected change should be considered around 5% or less. Take it as more like fine-tuning your instrument’s default tone.
cigilovic.com totally approves the product and can confidently recommend it to any guitar player who is seeking clear and defined sounding guitar pickup for their tremolo equipped guitars.
Seymour Duncan Company
Seymour Duncan is possibly the most respected and well-known company in the world of electric guitar pickups. Seymour Duncan’s journey started in the mid-60s when Seymour W. Duncan who is a seasoned luthier and musician decided to make and repair guitar pickups in his workshop in California, USA.
His life-long passion led him to understand all the nitty gritty details about the guitar tone and his pursuit of perfection drove him to come up with different winding techniques and materials in a bid to create the best guitar pickups in the world while offering constant modern improvements and innovations.
In 1976, Mr. Duncan officially founded the Seymour Duncan Pickups company in Santa Barbara, California, USA. His early work had already gained him a lot of popularity among guitar players. However, his breakthrough happened when he introduced the Seymour Duncan JB (Jeff Beck, R.I.P.) model in the late 70s and became one of the most popular guitar pickups of all time! Thomann's 70th Anniversary Offers
Through the 80s and ’90s, the company kept innovating and introducing a wide range of guitar pickups aimed at different players and different genres. The company’s collaborations with legends such as Slash, Joe Bonamassa and Y.J. Malmsteen further secured its position in the guitar pickup business.
Even to this day where the competition in this business segment is fierce, Seymour Duncan Pickups has managed to stay as a leader in guitar pickup technology and is offering an ever-expanding product catalogue for all guitar players.
Today, Seymour Duncan Pickups is a brand that is considered an industry standard for guitar pickups and is very well respected by the entire guitar community.
Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis PA TB1B
Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis humbucker pickups are considered a unique chapter in the company’s history, offering a sweet blend of vintage warmth and modern clarity. Parallel Axis was first introduced in the early 90s and designed to deliver a combination of classic humbucker tones with improved articulation and note definition which made these pickups a great choice for high-gain tones.
The Parallel Axis pickups were designed with the help of Warren DeMartini (Ratt, Whitesnake). He was looking for pickups that could handle high-gain, saturated tones as well as retaining the dynamics of his playing.
What makes Parallel Axis unique is how the pole pieces are arranged. Contrary to classic slanted pole pieces that can be found in most of the pickups, the Parallel Axis design offers a parallel configuration (hence the name!).
This configuration is there to contribute to enhancing string definition and clarity across the spectrum and reducing crosstalk.
Although this model is not as popular as other Seymour Duncan models, the Parallel Axis pickups have managed to gain a fan base among guitar players who are after this unique combination.
Parallel Axis features a dual-pole design, AlNiCo 5 magnet with over-wound coils to achieve a bold, bright tone with an articulate and clear top-end while offering a tight, focused low-end. According to Seymour Duncan, the Parallel Axis will noticeably increase your guitar’s sustain and keep your tones clear, and defined at all gain levels. Check out the best guitar pickup company, Seymour Duncan here!
Chords will sound more in your face with a nice growl while the single notes will have a shinny/glassy quality.
Parallel Axis is available for both neck and bridge positions. However, as far as I know, there’s no standard spacing version for the bridge. The bridge version only comes in the Trembucker version (or F-Spaced in DiMarzio‘s term!) meaning that the strings will perfectly align on a Floyd Rose or tremolo equipped guitars.
The Parallel Axis also comes in different varieties such as in a single coil format, Parallel Axis Stack Strat, Parallel Axis Distortion, Parallel Axis Blues Saraceno signature model.
Check out all available Parallel Axis models on Seymour Duncan website
On top of this, the company has released the Brandon Ellis signature model Dyad Parallel Axis (only available in the SD custom shop).
Check out Seymour Duncan’s custom shop Brandon Ellis signature model Dyad Parallel Axis here
Strangely, I became aware of this pickup more than two decades ago when I started taking lessons from my first guitar teacher, Savaş Oğuz. He was exclusively playing Ibanez RG guitars with Parallel Axis Blues Saraceno on the bridge position and always praising these pickups. He was also the reason I got into Blues Saraceno! 🙂
After all these years of thinking about getting a Parallel Axis pickup, I finally pulled the trigger and decided to replace the stock pickups on my Ibanez RG565.
While researching SD pickups, I also came across a USA custom shop Charvel DK24 Special Edition on Thomann (available for pre-order) and noticed they went for Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis along with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails on the neck position, a true 80s guitar!
To be honest, I was pretty happy with the stock pickups on my Ibanez RG565. The guitar features an Ibanez V8 Custom and an Ibanez Infinity RD pickup. However, I wanted to check this SD pair and see how much improvement these could add to my guitar.
Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis comes in a standard SD box with a pair of springs and screws, a pickup ring and simple wiring schematics (standard for SD humbuckers).
The one I got had the copper wires visible as shown below, however, it did not create any issues. I wasn’t concerned with this as this was at the top strings side.
After I made sure I could spend at least a couple of days on the pickup replacement as well as shooting demo and comparison videos with both sets, I went for it and started replacing my pickups.
To be honest, it took me a long time to figure out Ibanez RG’s switch so I had to draw everything by measuring and validating the connections with the stock pickups.
However, as the Ibanez colour codes were completely different from the Seymour Duncan ones, it drove me nuts for a couple of hours. Eventually, I managed to connect everything and started playing the guitar. But then I noticed I left some wires too long with some parts of the wire not insulated. So this shorted the signal and the overall signal on the bridge pickup was too weak.
Luckily, I figured out my soldering mistakes and cleaned the mess. I was finally able to hear both pickups and was pretty much amazed by the initial results.
The stock Ibanez RG565 pickups, Ibanez V8 Custom and Infinity RD were measured;
1st position – bridge pickup 16.91K
2nd position – bridge split + neck split: 2.07K
3rd position – bridge + neck: 4.16K
4th position – neck parallel: 1.37K
5th position – neck: 5.44K
Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis and Hot Rails were measured;
1st position – bridge pickup 15.23K
2nd position – bridge split + neck split: 3.18K
3rd position – bridge + neck: 6.31K
4th position – neck parallel: 2.67K
5th position – neck: 10.44K
Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis Review
Although my views on replacing pickups have changed drastically, I still believe one can fine-tune their guitar by simply choosing better-fit guitar pickups. As you will be able to hear with your own ears, the pickups definitely change the sound of an electric guitar.
However, the important thing is how much they can change your guitar tones. As you may notice, I avoid saying how much better! The new set of pickups may not give you the results that you have been looking for but they will absolutely change your guitar tone.
You may or may not like the result. But in the end, it’s an experiment every electric guitar player should go through in my opinion.
As I mentioned, I was pretty happy with the stock pickups on my Ibanez RG565, however, I did not really like the in-between positions as much as I liked the bridge, neck and both of them combined. Martinic Plugins - Precisely Modeled Vintage Instruments and FX Plugins
They sounded too weak and caused significant volume changes in comparison to bridge and neck pickup outputs. On top of that, as much as I liked the neck pickup on this guitar, it wasn’t creamy enough and it sounded more like a single coil than a single-sized humbucker.
Especially when I play faster runs, I kind of miss a full humbucker sound. I believe by replacing these pickups with Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis and Hot Rails, all these issues disappeared.
Before we compare both pickup sets, let’s first have a listen to the Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis. For this video, I used my Ibanez RG565 in Laser Blue, Marshall JVM410H, Redseven Amp Central (with V30 IR), Laney Monolith distortion pedal and MXR Micro Amp booster.
You will see the timeline for each part (on Youtube) and when these pedals are engaged.
Note that, both pair of pickups were recorded under the same condition, nothing was changed except the pickups.
I even measured the pickup heights and kept everything identical!
Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis Demo (no talking)
Of course, without comparing both Parallel Axis against Ibanez V8 Custom, it would be impossible to make a judgement. However, after you listen to this demo, I’m sure you will be able to hear the differences very clearly.
Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis vs Ibanez V8 Custom
As you can clearly hear, the Parallel Axis sounds a lot more clear and defined. I think due to slightly lower output and the unique pole piece design on the Parallel Axis, it sounds a bit better than the Ibanez V8 Custom pickup.
If you watch the video entirely, you will also notice the in-between positions and the Hot Rails neck pickup sound way more fuller in my opinion. I will also publish separate articles on all these pickups.
Of course, as mentioned above, the question is how much of a change was that? Is it worth replacing or upgrading your pickups? I think the change should be considered around 5% or less. Music Plugin Deals at Pluginboutique.com
I think both Ibanez and Seymour Duncan sets worked perfectly on this guitar. But I definitely like the Duncan pair better. As I gave an example above, this pair is used on a very high-end Charvel custom shop guitar, so you can’t go wrong with these!
Where to buy Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis pickups?
Parallel Axis pickups are the easiest ones to find online. I got mine from Thomann but it is frequently out of stock so if you are planning to buy one, hurry up! 🙂
Also note that, if you contact Thomann here and choose the guitar department, they will arrange your pickups with the EU distributor and will ship immediately. At the moment Thomann only lists the Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis (Original), PA-TB1B.
Check out Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis (Original), PA-TB1B at Thomann
If you are based in the US, it is better to directly purchase these from Seymour Duncan’s website. You will be also able to access all the Parallel Axis lines as well as the custom shop so you can grab one of Brandon Ellis’s signature ones too!
Check out Seymour Duncan‘s custom shop for Brandon Ellis signature model Dyad Parallel Axis
Check out all available Parallel Axis models on Seymour Duncan website
Last but not least, do not forget to check out Reverb.com as there are many sellers in the marketplace, actively offering Parallel Axis pickups.
Check out Parallel Axis models on Reverb.com
I hope you find this brief article insightful! Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!
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