Recently, we did a review on a pickup named after a creature from The Lord of the Rings, the Seymour Duncan Nazgul. We found it to be great for aggressive metal tones, but it lacked a bit in the clean sound department. Today, we’ll be looking at another mythical beast of a pickup, The Seymour Duncan Pegasus.

Let’s check it out!

Features:

– Alnico V Magnet

– Passive

– Available in black only

– 4 Conductor Shielded Cabling

– 12.5 DCR

– Available in F-Spacing or Standard Spacing

– Also Available in 7 and 8 String Models

Tone:

Originally only designed for extended range instruments, the Seymour Duncan Pegasus is built to cater to the needs of down tuning.

Crafted using the tried-and-true Alnico V magnet and with a DC resistance of 12.5, the Pegasus has a fairly hot/moderate output.

The Pegasus’ voicing somewhat reminds me of the famous JB humbucker. It is very musical with a lot of harmonic character, a rich high end, and warm bottom. In comparison to the JB, the Pegasus is scooped more in the mids, creating a bit more of an airy sound around the notes. This airiness adds a bit more snap to your pick attack, which is really nice for fast single note runs. It also makes for that great percussive sound when palm muting that I love so much.

Spend a little bit of time with the Pegasus and you can see that this thing was made for progressive metal. Partially thanks to the smaller frequency range, complex chords sound defined and clear, and clarity does not diminish when tuning super low. Although it’s big factor, pickup choice isn’t the only thing that affects clarity when tuning low.

One of my favorite features of this pickup is it’s dynamic responsiveness. Dig in super hard with some chuggy riffing and you’ll notice a huge difference from when you are picking softly.

I enjoyed the distorted sounds out of this pickup so much that I didn’t spend as much time as I should have on clean tones, but I will say that the cleans are much sweeter than the Nazgul. This is partially due to the magnet difference. The ceramic magnets are a bit more prone to “ice picking” and harsher sounds than the Alnico V. On the Pegasus, you’ll get a warmer clean tone with some very nice pick attack that makes for a surprisingly great jazzy sound.

(If you want to learn more about pickup magnets, check out our article on Alnico vs Ceramic magnets!)

Final Verdict:

If you’re looking for a pickup by Seymour Duncan that excels at progressive metal, then this is it!

The Pegasus is a musical pickup with loads of clarity that has the ability to perform in chuggy metal as well as crystal clear cleans.

The only thing this pickup doesn’t do a great job at is crunchy/vintage tones. I didn’t find it to be very pleasing for a nice overdriven sound, but it’s not really what this pickup was made for!

Paired well with the Sentient neck pickup, the Pegasus is one of my favorite pickups that Seymour Duncan has made for metal styles to date.

Tone – 4.5/5

Build Quality – 5/5

Features – 3/5

Don’t forget we are Seymour Duncan authorized dealers. If you need our guidance in finding the right pickup for you, check out our custom order option, and we can get you the tone you’re after!

If you liked this article, check out our other reviews here!

This article was written by Zac Buras, our editor located in Louisiana.

About The Author