What type of pickup is the Seymour Duncan Black Winter Bridge (Blackened Edition)?

The Seymour Duncan Black Winter Bridge (Blackened Edition) is a high-output passive humbucker with three ceramic mıknatıs, designed for modern metal players who need tight lows, aggressive mids, and articulate high-gain tones.

What’s the difference between the standard Black Winter and the Blackened Edition?

The Blackened Edition has shorter pole pieces, matte anthracite coils, and slightly lower inductance than the standard model. These design changes provide a touch more clarity and focus in high-gain settings.

Is the Black Winter Bridge pickup good for clean tones?

Not really — its dynamic range is narrow, and clean tones sound compressed and dark. It’s built for distortion and heavy rhythm work rather than versatility.

What music genres suit the Black Winter pickup best?

It’s ideal for modern metal, djent, and high-gain progressive styles. Players who like tight chugs and focused mids will love it.

How does the Black Winter compare to other Seymour Duncan high-output pickups?

Compared to models like the Duncan Distortion (SH-6) or TB-4, the Black Winter offers a darker, more aggressive voice with a slightly tighter response. It’s less versatile but more extreme in tone.

Seymour Duncan Black Winter Bridge (Blackened Edition) nasıl bir manyetik?

Seymour Duncan Black Winter Bridge (Blackened Edition), üç seramik mıknatısa sahip yüksek çıkışlı pasif bir humbucker’dır. Sıkı alçak frekanslar, saldırgan orta frekanslar ve net yüksek kazançlı tonlar arayan modern metal gitaristleri için tasarlanmıştır.

Standart Black Winter ile Blackened Edition arasındaki fark nedir?

Blackened Edition, daha kısa kutup parçalarına, mat antrasit bobinlere ve biraz daha düşük endüktansa sahiptir. Bu tasarım farkları, yüksek kazançlı tonlarda daha fazla netlik ve odak sağlar.

Black Winter Bridge temiz tonlarda iyi mi?

Pek değil — dinamik aralığı dardır, temiz tonlar sıkıştırılmış ve koyu duyulur. Bu manyetik daha çok distortion ve ağır ritim çalışmaları için üretilmiştir.

Black Winter hangi müzik türleri için uygundur?

Modern metal, djent ve yüksek kazançlı progresif tarzlar için idealdir. Sıkı chug’lar ve odaklı orta frekanslar seven gitaristler bu manyetiği çok beğenir.

Black Winter, diğer yüksek çıkışlı Seymour Duncan manyetiklerle nasıl karşılaştırılır?

Duncan Distortion (SH-6) veya TB-4 gibi modellere kıyasla Black Winter daha karanlık, daha saldırgan bir tona ve biraz daha sıkı bir tepkiye sahiptir. Çok yönlülüğü daha azdır ama ton olarak daha uç bir karakter sunar.

Seymour Duncan Black Winter Bridge (Blackened Edition) Review – Extreme Metal Humbucker

Baris Sahin
Nov 14, 2025
8 min read

Seymour Duncan Black Winter Bridge (Blackened) Review

Seymour Duncan Black Winter Bridge Blackened Edition humbucker

There are moments when you realize you’ve done something right. One of those moments for me came when one of my readers offered to send me his own pickup for review. I’d like to take this chance to thank Emre Bingöl for that — it truly meant a lot, especially since I honestly couldn’t afford to buy any new pickups lately.

Anyway, today’s guest is the Seymour Duncan Black Winter Bridge – Blackened Edition. I’ve been aware of this model since its release, but to be honest, I never paid much attention to it — mainly because, judging by its specs, it didn’t really fit my style. Still, how could I possibly turn down such an opportunity? So here we are, taking a closer look at one of Duncan’s most powerful passive pickups.

The Test Guitar

Seymour Duncan Black Winter Bridge Blackened Edition on Pink Tiger guitar

Black Winter Bridge still standing on my “Pink Tiger”. That pink tiger is a superstrat has a Jackson Dinky body made of alder, one piece maple neck in modern C profile, German made Jackson Floyd Rose tremolo with Japanese stainless steel saddles, 25,5” scale, Stainless steel Jumbo frets, Alpha 500K pots and elixir strings in D# tuning. Guitar has Std Black Winter neck and No-name blade style middle pickups(~9K thou). Its primary (unplugged) tone is neutral to fairly bright.

Evaluation

Let’s read the desciption first, as always;

“The Black Winter pickup is a savagely high-output passive humbucker built for extreme metal, with no less than three large ceramic magnets to ensure maximum output and sustain in all high-gain situations. The custom overwound coil design delivers incredible clarity in the mids and highs, while the low end stays controlled and focused. The Black Winter is designed to handle any tuning, no matter how low you go, and its voicing facilitates aggressive palm mutes, fluid sweep picking, and punishing lead tones

Crushing distortion, vicious mids, and aggressive saturation are at your fingertips, without sacrificing string-to-string separation or sensitivity. The 7- and 8-string versions are built to handle even more extended-range low notes with ease. Pair the bridge Black Winter with the Black Winter neck model for maximum metal onslaught.”

My measurements are here;

Seymour Duncan Black Winter Bridge (Blackened)

Magnet – Three big ceramics

Advertised DCR: 17.40 K Ohm (Series)

Measured DCR: 17.89 K Ohm (Series)

Measured DCR: 8.79 K Ohm (Screw Coil)

Measured DCR: 9.24 K Ohm (Slug Coil)

Inductance @100Hz: 6.03 H (Series)

Inductance @100Hz: 2.73 H (Screw Coil)

Inductance @100Hz: 2.76 H (Slug Coil)

Advertised Resonance Frequency: 6.68KHz (std. Version)

Measured C: -13.3nF (Series)/ -24.8nF (Screw Coil) / -22.9nF (Slug Coil)

Output: Too High

EQ (B/M/T) – 5/9/7 (old catalog data)

Gauss: 700G screw, 700G slug (measured at top center of D&G pole pieces)

Ambient Measurement Temperature: 23^oC

Alright, let’s take our usual approach and examine the pickup from the outside in. First of all, the pickup’s overall form will look very familiar to DiMarzio users. It’s worth noting that Seymour Duncan actually offers two versions of the Black Winter Bridge: the standard model — with the classic PAF-style look — and this one, the Blackened Edition. This version follows the well-known DiMarzio PAF Pro layout, but with one key difference: the pole pieces don’t protrude below the baseplate. Not because they can’t — but because they’re shorter. My guess is that this design helps to increase the magnetic density right above the pole pieces.

Seymour Duncan Black Winter Bridge Blackened Edition - intro

I really like the coil color. It’s not plain black but a dark anthracite shade, with a satin/matte texture — very cool, in my opinion. The lightly visible dark logo also looks great; it’s subtle and classy. (You’ll see what I mean when I publish the review of the neck version in a couple of weeks — the logo placement there, to me, looks anything but elegant.) But here, it’s spot-on.

Continuing with the construction details: the baseplate is made of nickel silver, but it’s coated with a thick layer of paint, which makes the stamped logo a bit hard to read. As visible through the coil window, the winding wire has a distinct red insulation, which immediately stands out.

When we move on to the technical side, the first thing that caught my attention was the slightly asymmetrical coils. To be sure, I measured them several times — even repeated the measurements a day later — and the results were identical. The slug (north) coil has a bit more windings, and the difference is clear enough that it’s definitely not just a matter of production tolerance.

So yes, I can confidently say that the Blackened Black Winter Bridge uses non-symmetrical coils. Its DCR readings are not identical but very close to those of my TB-4, which measures 18.62K. This suggests that the Black Winter Bridge and TB-4 likely share a similar winding count but use wires with different insulation types.

It has lower gauss than i expected yet still very hish thanks to three big creamic magnets; see the image supplied by Alexey (axvvell on instagram)

Black Winter Bridge humbucker close-up showing ceramic magnets: Thanks to Alexey for the image

Its inductance is slightly lower than that of the standard edition — which makes sense, given the use of adjustable hex pole pieces containing less ferrous mass. For an overwound pickup, that might not be a bad thing at all in terms of preserving clarity, hmm?

When I wired the pickup into the guitar and plugged into the amp, the very first thing that struck me was just how loud the Black Winter is. I hadn’t used such a high-output pickup in a long time — and, honestly, I hadn’t missed it either. My last encounter with an ultra-hot pickup was the Duncan Livewire Metal series, which I really didn’t enjoy. They were just too dark, too compressed — yes, absolute flamethrowers, but almost completely lifeless. Initially, the i have felt very similar with Black Winter and disappointed: after the first hour of playing, I can’t say I liked the tone at all.

But the next day, with more appropriate amp settings, it completely transformed — a whole new level opened up, and I had some seriously fun, chuggy hours. My guitar isn’t tuned super low, but even in Eb tuning, it sounded massive. Let’s try an old Dream Theater chord: hit a C5/G power chord and just listen to that roar. It’s huge, full, and thick, yet remains fairly clear under heavy gain. Now start palm-muting and pay attention to the weight and size of the lows — it’s powerful. The response is tight and punchy. Then move on to an Em(addF#) chord — if you’ve ever played Pull Me Under, you’ll know the one. Feels great, doesn’t it?

Seymour Duncan Black Winter Bridge Blackened Edition - pole peices

If we generalize its EQ character, I’d describe it as having tight but not overly rich lows (not as lush as an Alnico 5 humbucker’s), clear and well-balanced low-mids, plenty of mids while the high mids are bright and clear.

At this point, there’s something I’d like to highlight. As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, there are two versions of this pickup. Seymour Duncan lists both with the same DCR, unloaded resonance frequency, and EQ chart — but interestingly, there are clear technical differences between them. For instance, considering that the regular version has about 1 henry higher inductance than the Blackened Edition (Antigua measured the standard model at 6.891H), it’s hard to imagine that they would share exactly the same resonance frequency.

And this brings me back to the point I made earlier about the clarity of the distortion tone in the Blackened Edition. I really enjoyed the crisp, articulate distortion I got from this pickup. But I can’t help wondering — if the inductance were about 1H higher, as in the standard version, would that extra inductance start to muddy up the low end? After all, there’s also a Trembucker-sized version of the standard model, which makes the comparison even more intriguing.

On that note, a few followers have recently messaged me on Instagram about their experiences with the Black Winter and its lack of clarity under distortion, and it looks like we’ll be comparing notes soon.

One particularly interesting detail about this pickup is this: as you know, most Duncan pickups carry a code name — SH-1, SH-2, TB-4, SH-5, and so on. Strangely, the Black Winter models don’t. I’d really love to ask Derek Duncan about the reason behind that.

When it comes to dynamic range, well… with a ~18K DCR and three massive magnets, what would you really expect? Naturally, the range is quite narrow. Adjusting the volume pot does make a difference, of course — but even just before the point where the signal starts to drop out completely, getting a truly clean tone isn’t really possible.

Black Winter Bridge humbucker close-up showing coil wire

Cleans? What cleans? Haven’t even tried.

Then again, who would buy a Black Winter expecting sparkling cleans, right? So in that sense, I wouldn’t call the BW a versatile pickup. On the contrary, it’s a highly focused one. Its purpose and tonal focus are limited — and the boundaries of that clarity are very well-defined. Within those limits, it’s absolutely successful at what it does. Step outside them, though… and it falls apart rather quickly.

Is it suitable for modern heavy metal? In my opinion, yes, it is. I believe it can handle lower tunings with ease.

Conclusion

The Seymour Duncan Black Winter Bridge – Blackened Edition is not a pickup that tries to please everyone, and that’s precisely what makes it interesting. It’s unapologetically aggressive, purpose-built for modern high-gain styles, and leaves little room for subtlety. Once dialed in correctly, it delivers a crushing yet articulate tone that rewards precision and tight playing.

Its construction details — from the pole pieces to the matte anthracite coils — show that it’s designed with intent, not just aesthetics. The asymmetric coils and slightly lower inductance of the Blackened Edition give it a touch more clarity than one might expect from an 18K triple ceramic beast. Still, its dynamic range is limited, and if you’re chasing glassy cleans or vintage dynamics, you’re looking in the wrong place.

BW bridge is not a versatile pickup, nor does it pretend to be. But within its narrow field of focus — heavy riffing, modern metal, djent, or any genre that thrives on tight lows and biting mids — it’s an absolute weapon. But NOT a swiss army knife, BW bridge is truely a Rambo knife for the real life “High Gain Tone Rambos” out there.