Nick Jennison reviews the Seymour Duncan Hot Chicken Pickups. Available in both Strat and Tele sets, these high-output pickups are crafted for players seeking aggressive, punchy tones with outstanding clarity. Featuring Alnico 5 magnets and overwound coils, they deliver powerful, harmonically rich sounds. Expect crisp highs, tight lows, and a pronounced midrange, making them versatile for both rhythm and lead playing. Transform your Strat or Tele with the dynamic, searing tones of Seymour Duncan Hot Chicken Pickups.
When I say "country guitar," what sort of tone springs to mind? If you're like most guitarists, you'll think of a twangy, heavily compressed clean tone that's closer to a pedal steel than a typical clean amp sound. Maybe there'll be some slapback echo (ok, who am I kidding, there's no "maybe" about it), but the beautiful, round clean sound is non-negotiable, right?
Thing is, country guitar has changed a LOT since the days of "classic country." A modern country player needs to be able to turn up the heat, whether that's for Brad Paisley-style bite or full-on Dann Huff scream, and many of the vintage single coils that are treasured for their clean sounds just won't cut it for the dirty stuff. That's before we talk about noise - if you're a working player in Nashville and you turn up to a session with a guitar that goes "bzzzzzzzzz" as soon as you hit your green overdrive of choice, you can be sure you aren't getting a call back.
Enter Seymour Duncan, with their new Hot Chicken pickups. Aimed squarely at the modern country player, these noiseless single coils are available in both Strat and Tele formats, and have the best of both worlds when it comes to tone. They're round, twangy, and characterful for clean sounds, but have enough output and punch to work equally well with high-gain sounds - and thanks to their stacked construction, they're totally noiseless.
It's important to say at this point that the spec sheet on these pickups will likely deceive you. The stated DC resistance numbers on these pickups are frankly preposterous, but in reality, they're only slightly hotter than "vintage" spec. It just goes to show, you can't judge a pickup by the resistance alone. They're also very well balanced across the two sets that are available, with slightly hotter bridge pickups for a little extra punch and bite.
The Strat set has a little more low end and low midrange than I'd expect from a legitimate vintage single coil set, and that's a good thing. After all, there's a reason Teles are the weapon of choice for classic country players, and it's the muscle and punch the bridge pickup provides. The Hot Chicken Strat bridge pickup is a little closer to this, but is still distinctly "Stratty" in its character. The neck and middle pickups are fat and tubular, and balance very well. The "in-between" tones aren't quite as sparkly and quacky as some vintage spec singles out there, but they do have a very healthy output that works great with gain sounds.
The Tele set, by contrast, is overtly "classic," with a muscular bridge pickup that's reminiscent of the "Broadcaster"-style models I've tried. It's quite hot, but not monstrously so. The neck pickup, by contrast, is dark and full - a little too much for my tastes if I'm being honest, but that's the nature of classic Tele neck pickups. It'll do jazz and western swing tones very convincingly, with plenty of meat when it's time to lay down some thick lead lines.
Whether you're a Strat or a Tele main, the Seymour Duncan Hot Chicken set delivers beautiful vintage clean tones with enough beef to handle the high-gain demands faced by the modern country player - but they're also versatile enough to hang at your rock, blues, or metal gig too!
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