Axebuilder
Accentuator
Accentuator
Looking for something to breath new life into your guitar? Discover the Axebuilder Accentuator, a top choice among guitar enthusiasts and one of our best selling pickups. As my first original pickup design, the Accentuator holds a special place in our history. It was born from my quest for a distinctive sound that I could not find in other pickups. I wanted a humbucker that could maintain clarity and definition both clean and with any amount of gain I would throw at it. My goal was a pickup that produced a sweet, chime-like clean tone, yet could also satisfy my cravings for heavy crunch and harmonically rich distortion. Isn’t that what we’re all after? This relentless pursuit of sonic perfection led not only to the Accentuator’s creation but also ignited my passion for crafting unique pickups, laying the foundation for all other original designs at Axebuilder.
This modern voiced, medium-output pickup is renowned for its versatility. Driven by a potent Alnico 8 magnet and paired with dual slug coils, the Accentuator boasts a distinctive voice that adapts to a broad musical spectrum. Experience crisp, clear highs, a tight low end, and sweet midrange. Its dynamic feel, articulate response, and assertive attack truly set it apart from other humbuckers. The Accentuator offers more presence and midrange than others, yet it remains refined and smooth, without any harshness or overbearing tones.
In the bridge position, its clean tones are bright and lively, while the neck pickup delivers a warm, rich timbre. It serves excellently for rhythm playing but truly excels in higher gain, producing a lush, dense lead tone. Explore the neck pickups lead capabilities and check out the high gain neck pickup demo below. While these pickups perform exceptionally well with clean tones, they truly come into their own when you turn up the gain. Whether it's the subtle crunch of low gain overdrives or the intense roar of modern high gain for hard rock, punk, or metal, the Accentuator handles it all with grace. It maintains clarity and definition in complex chords, which often become muddied and indistinct at high gain, ensuring each note stands out with distinct separation and detailed articulation.
Pickup Specs:
Magnet Type = Alnico 8
Bridge DC resitance = 9.5k
Neck DC resistance = 7.4k
Available in 53mm or 50mm pole piece spacing for the bridge pickup and with your choice of 4-conductor cable for split coil and series/parallel wiring options, or a single conductor braided shield cable.
Sound Samples:
Clean demo of the Accentuator bridge and neck humbucker set. Starts with open chords in the bridge position, then bridge & neck combined, then neck position. At 0:50s it's clean leads in the neck position, 1:13 is bridge and neck combined, and at 1:40 to the end is clean leads in the bridge position.
Medium gain overdrive demo of the Accentuator bridge & neck humbucker set. It starts off in the bridge position with the volume pot on the guitar rolled down to low volume, then medium, then full volume to show how well it cleans up and the different degrees of drive you can get just by adjusting your guitars volume knob. At 0:38s you get the bridge pickup lead followed by bridge & neck combined at 0:48s, and then neck pickup from 0:58s to the end.
Accentuator bridge pickup rock demo.
High gain Accentuator bridge pickup demo.
High gain Accentuator neck pickup demo.