Duo Sonic Pickups

[chandra]

Picked up a used torino red 2016 Duo Sonic earlier this year. Absolutely love the guitar shape, but a little impartial to the sound. The pickups definitely have their own character, but I'm a knob fiddler, and hate the fact that they become very muffled and have a horrible volume drop off when rolled off completely to zero. I figure by replacing the pots and installing a modern wiring, I'll be able to open up the pickups a bit more, but I still wonder what more this guitar can do.

I have a pair of Duncan Designed SC-102 stack pickups laying about that I was thinking of throwing into the guitar, but I do like the pseudo-tele and Strat sounds that the Duo Sonic gives me currently. Anyone have this guitar and care to share their experiences and maybe what mods they made themselves? I play many styles of music, and have a large amount of guitars, so it's not like I need this particular model to be that versatile. But I can't help but feel that this is a real "secret weapon" Fender that can greatly improve with some changes on deck.

Fender really hit it out of the park with this guitar. Absolutely stunning model, and the Mexico plant has been cranking out some real decent guitars for the money lately. Haven't peaked under the hood of mine just yet, but really excited about expanding the tone of this model and going sideways from there.

[Gordon]

On my Must-o-Sonic, I have TV Jones and they're awesome:



There's a build/assembly thread there: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=107002

[chandra]

Wow, great looking axe. Not very familiar with that style of pickup. Did you keep the wiring as RWRP still?? How different does it sound to the stock pickups?

[Gordon]

Wow, great looking axe. Not very familiar with that style of pickup. Did you keep the wiring as RWRP still?? How different does it sound to the stock pickups?

Doesn't matter, since those are humbuckers. However, they sound more like punchy single coil pickups, with a bit more lower end, and are very jangly. They have more presence than the stock pickups as well.

[honeyiscool]

You don’t have to replace pots. You can just install modern wiring by flipping a wire from one lug to another. The stock pickups on these guitars are really nice quality. Proper Alnico pickups and unless you really want humbuckers, you’re just fine with stock.

[hardtail01]

To take it one step further, you can install a treble bleed kit on the volume pot.

[chandra]

Maybe it's just my ears, but I'm not a fan of these pickups at all. And the pots can be a lot better...but maybe modern wiring can fix that tbh.

I can understand that the Duo Sonic has it's own thing going on, but I'm not about it. Too anemic, and there's absolutely no taper on the knobs. Things are either completely on, or off. No in-betweens.

Gonna go with either a stack or some Rose pickups. Same way that Tele's and Strat's have various "signature tones", I think the Duo Sonic sound isn't sacred. Thanks for the help though everyone.