Seth E. Lover (January 1, 1910 in
Kalamazoo, Michigan – January 31, 1997 in
Garden Grove, California) was a designer of amplifiers and musical instrument electronics and effects. He is most famous for developing the Gibson
humbucker or hum-cancelling electric stringed instrument pickup, most often used on the
electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...
.
Life and career
Seth Lover began working with electronics as a child, and continued working with them during and after his first service with the US Army in the 1930s. He then worked in an electronics shop in
Kalamazoo
Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in the southwest region of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Kalamazoo County. At the 2010 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 74,262. Kalamazoo is the major city of the Kalamazoo-Portage Metropol ...
, repairing radios and building amplifiers. In the 1940s he worked for
Gibson Guitars before joining the service a second time during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. During the rest of the 1940s and 1950s, his career fluctuated between working for Gibson and the US Navy. He developed the humbucking pickup for Gibson in 1955, and designed the first fuzztone distortion device, called the Maestro, in 1961. He stayed with Gibson until 1967 when he took a designing job with
Fender Musical Instruments. He retired to the Southern California town of
Garden Grove.
Lover died on January 31, 1997 at the age of 87 after a brief illness. He was survived by his wife, his two sons, and his three grandchildren.
Designs with Gibson, Fender, and Seymour Duncan
With Gibson

Lover's most famous humbucker design was the
P.A.F. (Patent Applied For) designed while working for Gibson in 1955. This pickup was utilized in a range of Gibson guitars, most notably the
Les Paul model.
Before Lover, electric guitarists were forced to cope with the
60-cycle hum received by single coil pickups. It was in the mid-'50s, while working as an amplifier designer at Gibson Guitars, that Lover figured out how to wire two coils electrically out of phase and with reversed magnetic polarities. The effect was to cancel the hum before it reached the amp and the result was the birth of the humbucking pickup.
[The humbucking pickup was simultaneously and independently developed by Ray Butts, whose patent application was slightly earlier than Lover's; Butts' pickup was licensed to ]Gretsch
Gretsch is an American company that manufactures musical instruments. The company was founded in 1883 in Brooklyn, New York by Friedrich Gretsch, a 27-year-old German immigrant, shortly after his arrival to the United States. Friedrich Gretsc ...
as the Filter'Tron
Lover applied for the patent on the humbucking pickup in 1955 and it was finally granted in 1959 (). During this five-year period, Gibson adhered a "Patent Applied For" sticker to the underside of their humbucker pickups. These "P.A.F." pickups are among the most collectable and desirable pickups today, fetching upwards of $1,000 each among
vintage guitar
A vintage guitar is an older guitar usually sought after and maintained by avid collectors or musicians. The term may indicate either that an instrument is merely old, or that is sought after for its tonal quality, cosmetic appearance, or his ...
collectors.
While working under
Ted McCarty at Gibson, Lover was also involved in guitar design. He liked to tell how he helped contribute to the design of the famous "Flying V." Lover said that he thought up the design as a way to lean the guitar against a wall without it tipping over.
Lover worked for Gibson from 1952 to 1967 as a design engineer.
With Fender

From 1967 to 1975 Lover worked for Fender Musical Instruments as a project engineer. He authored three patents during that time: two for loudspeaker cabinets and one for an electric piano pickup.
Lover designed the
Fender Wide Range humbucking pickup (WRHP), which was used in the
three Telecaster models (
Deluxe
Deluxe may refer to:
Corporations
* Deluxe Corporation, check printers
* De Luxe Motor Car Company, an American automobile manufacturer
Media and entertainment
* DeLuxe Color, a brand of color photography used in motion pictures, especially t ...
,
Custom, and
Thinline) produced by Fender in the 1960-1970s. The Wide Range pickup was also used in the
Fender Starcaster.
With Seymour Duncan
Seymour W. Duncan
Seymour W. Duncan is an American guitarist, guitar repairman, and a co-founder of the Seymour Duncan Company, a manufacturer of guitar pickups, bass pickups, and effects pedals located in Santa Barbara, California.
Early life
Seymour Dunca ...
, a guitar pickup designer and manufacturer, considered Lover his "humbucker mentor". The two were associated for nearly 20 years. In 1994, Duncan and Lover jointly produced the Seth Lover Model pickup, a re-creation of the "Patent Applied For" humbucker. After numerous full-page ads,
NAMM Show appearances, and magazine interviews, Lover became a minor celebrity at age 84. During his final years, Lover was a regular member of the Seymour Duncan NAMM-team.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lover, Seth
1910 births
1997 deaths
People from Kalamazoo, Michigan
American electronics engineers
20th-century American engineers