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Hello all,
I have known of this forum for many years but never really had any reason to join despite reading through hundreds of posts and threads. Although I'm a guitarist of nearly 30 years, I don't buy many guitars ( but own several ) and don't really buy too many parts for the ones I do have. Interestingly, after having looked at all my guitars, most of them are loaded with an SD pickup. Of the 14 guitars I own, I have SD pickups in 7 of them. I Live in the Santa Barbara area and am a professional sound engineer doing sound for bands, corporate events, wedding, concerts; you name it. I have actually done sound for Mr. Duncan and his Guitar Army before ( although he probably doesn't know it )! That isn't the reason I own so many of his pickups though, it is mostly just because the price and the marketing for them is spot on for the interests I have. I Just seem to find the price and the performance to be exactly what I'm looking for; most of the time. I have a couple of guitars with his Performer series pickups, which are admittedly cheap but acceptable, and several guitars with other more popular models. I actually own 8 sets of pickups of which one is waiting for another guitar to put them in. I had to go through 3 sets of pickups to get what I wanted in my latest guitar build. I bought a Lil-59 set and should have taken advantage of the 21-day return policy, but sat on it too long and tried several different wirings to see if I would be happy to no avail. Which brings us to the predominant part of this post, the SD Jerry Donahue pickup and STR-1 neck pickup review, but first I want to say a little about why it took so long to come to even looking at the JD model.
My first guitar was a cheap $150 Samick from the early '90s!!! A guitar not unlike some Fender Squire's of the day made with a plywood body. Yes, they actually made guitars out of plywood and I think the only part of the guitar you actually spent any money for was the neck, which is actually a really nice one. Actually, my first two guitars were made out of plywood; I know this because my second guitar was a late 80's, early 90's Fender Squire II which also has a plywood body. Both guitars came equipped with cheap single-coil pickups and for lack of any better term, sounded like ass..... I was still in high school at the time and buying new pickups was a little out of my reach, not to mention I didn't know that much about electronics at the time, so paying to have the work done was also cost-prohibitive. So I dealt with it until I found my next guitar, a late 1960's era Cameo Deluxe SG copy!!!! Now we are cooking with gas. The Cameo was loaded with humbuckers and sounded fat, had tons of growl and played amazingly compared to the Samick and the Squire II. So I was sold on humbucking guitars from then on. I have this thing where I won't pick up a guitar that I won't/can't afford. So that leaves out many single-coil guitars that would have probably sounded good to me. People like Yngwie, Eric J, Eric C, and Hendrix were just aliens to me who could make the single-coil sound work. That just wasn't me. Now I don't just buy guitars very often or even acquire them with any rhyme or reason, I just seem to end up with them. I bought an Epiphone SG from a friend, traded an amp for a Mexican made strat, my brother bought me a guitar and a couple others just landed in my lap from friends or others who just didn't want them. In all my years of playing, I have only actually purchased 1 guitar new. Because all of my guitars were relatively cheap and it just seemed that the majority were strats, I had a ritual of pulling the single-coils out right away and replacing them with humbucking pickups. I had always been interested in Telecaster guitars and the way they sounded, I love that twangy country guitar sound, but just never came across a Telecaster I had to have. So I built one from a kit and gave it to a friend ( I put humbuckers in it ) mostly because he wanted a guitar and I just wanted the experience building one. I then built a second one as a parts-caster, which I again loaded with humbuckers. I really LOVE the second one I made, so I knew I had to make another and I wanted it to be a Telecaster that sounded the way I always thought a Tele should sound.
Enter the challenge I made for myself. So I was stuck on stupid about having the guitar be noiseless. Fair enough, Fender recently released the Gen-4 noiseless pickups and who better to get the Telecaster sound right than them right? They said it was a breakthrough model after all. I put them in the guitar and fired things up; NOPE, ain't gonna do it..... The bridge was WAY too ice-picky and brash and it also had a sterile feel to it with no touch, spank, ploink or bloom to the note. It just played the notes you played and there was no other connection. The neck was actually decent sounding but again had this sterile disconnection to my playing. They came out almost as fast as they went in. So I quickly ordered a Lil-59 set from Seymour Duncan hoping that it would do the trick. Again, being stuck on noiseless, I just figured anything would be better. Wrong again..... The bridge sounded dark when wired in series and even using 1 meg pots didn't help much. The neck was just too quiet in comparison to the bridge and again, it had this sterility to it that I didn't like. I tried wiring the Lil-59 in parallel and it too was just too ice-picky and brash, so I was really starting to think the guitar was just borked. It played great and sounded fine acoustically, so it should sound just fine with any pickup I thought. Sitting back at the drawing board I was going through what could cause my issues. I used a name brand Bridge, nut and tuners, so it has to be either the pickups or me that is just not right. I came to the realization that if I want a Telecaster guitar that sounded like the Telecasters I was drawn to, I would have to go with true Single-coil pickups as would be used in such a guitar.
I have been a sound guy doing sound for bands for about 17 years and I have seen many, many guitarists with Telecasters that sounded amazing, so I knew I had a pretty good basis for what one could sound like. The one thing that I was doing differently was trying to use a noiseless model pickup set. So that had to be the factor. So I did some reading and this time I was going to spend the money to do it as best it can be. Lindy Fralin, BKP and other boutique pickup makers just weren't selling me and I wanted something that was more traditional but not too bright. I have a maple cap and maple neck guitar so that could have contributed to the bright sound, although I wasn't convinced that was the sole contributor. I had seen many other guitars that sounded fine that were just the same. I knew I didn't want to have A5 pole pieces as I was certain they would be too bright and other AII models didn't seem to spell out a better prognosis. The JD signature model just seemed to be what I was looking for. I also decided to go with the STR-1 for the neck as it seemed to be the most vintage correct model and it was also brighter than most of their others. The Twang King set from Dimarzio was also on my shortlist, but I just knew that if I was looking for a more contemporary design and sound SD was the place to go. I picked a winner!!!!
I was scared a little when I fired the guitar up through the amp. I have at this point spent around $400 on pickups for this guitar and have been 0-2 on it. I wasn't sure about how noisy they would be, how bright they would be, or if they would even have that Tele spank I was after. I went straight for the kill and started playing on the high strings to see if it was tolerable. Holy hell, it sounded amazing!!!!! Then I got to the low strings and there it was, that Telecaster spank, growl, snap and twang. The JD bridge pickup has the touch and feel I was after as well, which made it even better!!! I couldn't stop playing and I was almost crying I was so happy. It was the sound I was searching for. The STR-1 in the neck suffers from the quintessential Telecaster symptoms of low output, muted high end and an overall wooly sound. I was expecting this, but what I can say is that it was at least not sterile sounding or feeling, and is an acceptable sound that I think I can make work. I am pretty certain I will remove the neck pickup cover to recover some brightness and volume. The STR-1 as a neck pickup on a Tele, I imagine, sounds as good as any traditional one would. I prefer the brighter sound of a Strat neck pickup and while I could go that way, I want to keep it pretty traditional, so removing the cover is as good as I think I can get.
So if you're building a Telecaster, or looking to replace the pickups you have in one, I highly suggest the Seymour Duncan Jerry Donahue lead model! I am so happy I got it and can't really imagine another Tele without one. I have a Telecaster with Hot Rails in it, and now this one with the JD signatures in it, I think my next Telecaster will be a Thinline with P90's perhaps? They are quiet enough that hum isn't even a concern ( at least for me and where I am at anyway ) even. All I can say is that I am sold on single-coil pickups now. I just have to get the right ones put into the right guitar. Now I'm also going to have to build a Strat with single-coils to round out my collection. It may have taken nearly 30 years, but I finally see what all the hype is about really good single-coil guitars, their sound, touch and feel that guitarists rave about. There is a difference and while a well-tuned instrument of any type simply performs amazingly, there is something to a guitar that has single-coils that just talks to you.
I have known of this forum for many years but never really had any reason to join despite reading through hundreds of posts and threads. Although I'm a guitarist of nearly 30 years, I don't buy many guitars ( but own several ) and don't really buy too many parts for the ones I do have. Interestingly, after having looked at all my guitars, most of them are loaded with an SD pickup. Of the 14 guitars I own, I have SD pickups in 7 of them. I Live in the Santa Barbara area and am a professional sound engineer doing sound for bands, corporate events, wedding, concerts; you name it. I have actually done sound for Mr. Duncan and his Guitar Army before ( although he probably doesn't know it )! That isn't the reason I own so many of his pickups though, it is mostly just because the price and the marketing for them is spot on for the interests I have. I Just seem to find the price and the performance to be exactly what I'm looking for; most of the time. I have a couple of guitars with his Performer series pickups, which are admittedly cheap but acceptable, and several guitars with other more popular models. I actually own 8 sets of pickups of which one is waiting for another guitar to put them in. I had to go through 3 sets of pickups to get what I wanted in my latest guitar build. I bought a Lil-59 set and should have taken advantage of the 21-day return policy, but sat on it too long and tried several different wirings to see if I would be happy to no avail. Which brings us to the predominant part of this post, the SD Jerry Donahue pickup and STR-1 neck pickup review, but first I want to say a little about why it took so long to come to even looking at the JD model.
My first guitar was a cheap $150 Samick from the early '90s!!! A guitar not unlike some Fender Squire's of the day made with a plywood body. Yes, they actually made guitars out of plywood and I think the only part of the guitar you actually spent any money for was the neck, which is actually a really nice one. Actually, my first two guitars were made out of plywood; I know this because my second guitar was a late 80's, early 90's Fender Squire II which also has a plywood body. Both guitars came equipped with cheap single-coil pickups and for lack of any better term, sounded like ass..... I was still in high school at the time and buying new pickups was a little out of my reach, not to mention I didn't know that much about electronics at the time, so paying to have the work done was also cost-prohibitive. So I dealt with it until I found my next guitar, a late 1960's era Cameo Deluxe SG copy!!!! Now we are cooking with gas. The Cameo was loaded with humbuckers and sounded fat, had tons of growl and played amazingly compared to the Samick and the Squire II. So I was sold on humbucking guitars from then on. I have this thing where I won't pick up a guitar that I won't/can't afford. So that leaves out many single-coil guitars that would have probably sounded good to me. People like Yngwie, Eric J, Eric C, and Hendrix were just aliens to me who could make the single-coil sound work. That just wasn't me. Now I don't just buy guitars very often or even acquire them with any rhyme or reason, I just seem to end up with them. I bought an Epiphone SG from a friend, traded an amp for a Mexican made strat, my brother bought me a guitar and a couple others just landed in my lap from friends or others who just didn't want them. In all my years of playing, I have only actually purchased 1 guitar new. Because all of my guitars were relatively cheap and it just seemed that the majority were strats, I had a ritual of pulling the single-coils out right away and replacing them with humbucking pickups. I had always been interested in Telecaster guitars and the way they sounded, I love that twangy country guitar sound, but just never came across a Telecaster I had to have. So I built one from a kit and gave it to a friend ( I put humbuckers in it ) mostly because he wanted a guitar and I just wanted the experience building one. I then built a second one as a parts-caster, which I again loaded with humbuckers. I really LOVE the second one I made, so I knew I had to make another and I wanted it to be a Telecaster that sounded the way I always thought a Tele should sound.
Enter the challenge I made for myself. So I was stuck on stupid about having the guitar be noiseless. Fair enough, Fender recently released the Gen-4 noiseless pickups and who better to get the Telecaster sound right than them right? They said it was a breakthrough model after all. I put them in the guitar and fired things up; NOPE, ain't gonna do it..... The bridge was WAY too ice-picky and brash and it also had a sterile feel to it with no touch, spank, ploink or bloom to the note. It just played the notes you played and there was no other connection. The neck was actually decent sounding but again had this sterile disconnection to my playing. They came out almost as fast as they went in. So I quickly ordered a Lil-59 set from Seymour Duncan hoping that it would do the trick. Again, being stuck on noiseless, I just figured anything would be better. Wrong again..... The bridge sounded dark when wired in series and even using 1 meg pots didn't help much. The neck was just too quiet in comparison to the bridge and again, it had this sterility to it that I didn't like. I tried wiring the Lil-59 in parallel and it too was just too ice-picky and brash, so I was really starting to think the guitar was just borked. It played great and sounded fine acoustically, so it should sound just fine with any pickup I thought. Sitting back at the drawing board I was going through what could cause my issues. I used a name brand Bridge, nut and tuners, so it has to be either the pickups or me that is just not right. I came to the realization that if I want a Telecaster guitar that sounded like the Telecasters I was drawn to, I would have to go with true Single-coil pickups as would be used in such a guitar.
I have been a sound guy doing sound for bands for about 17 years and I have seen many, many guitarists with Telecasters that sounded amazing, so I knew I had a pretty good basis for what one could sound like. The one thing that I was doing differently was trying to use a noiseless model pickup set. So that had to be the factor. So I did some reading and this time I was going to spend the money to do it as best it can be. Lindy Fralin, BKP and other boutique pickup makers just weren't selling me and I wanted something that was more traditional but not too bright. I have a maple cap and maple neck guitar so that could have contributed to the bright sound, although I wasn't convinced that was the sole contributor. I had seen many other guitars that sounded fine that were just the same. I knew I didn't want to have A5 pole pieces as I was certain they would be too bright and other AII models didn't seem to spell out a better prognosis. The JD signature model just seemed to be what I was looking for. I also decided to go with the STR-1 for the neck as it seemed to be the most vintage correct model and it was also brighter than most of their others. The Twang King set from Dimarzio was also on my shortlist, but I just knew that if I was looking for a more contemporary design and sound SD was the place to go. I picked a winner!!!!
I was scared a little when I fired the guitar up through the amp. I have at this point spent around $400 on pickups for this guitar and have been 0-2 on it. I wasn't sure about how noisy they would be, how bright they would be, or if they would even have that Tele spank I was after. I went straight for the kill and started playing on the high strings to see if it was tolerable. Holy hell, it sounded amazing!!!!! Then I got to the low strings and there it was, that Telecaster spank, growl, snap and twang. The JD bridge pickup has the touch and feel I was after as well, which made it even better!!! I couldn't stop playing and I was almost crying I was so happy. It was the sound I was searching for. The STR-1 in the neck suffers from the quintessential Telecaster symptoms of low output, muted high end and an overall wooly sound. I was expecting this, but what I can say is that it was at least not sterile sounding or feeling, and is an acceptable sound that I think I can make work. I am pretty certain I will remove the neck pickup cover to recover some brightness and volume. The STR-1 as a neck pickup on a Tele, I imagine, sounds as good as any traditional one would. I prefer the brighter sound of a Strat neck pickup and while I could go that way, I want to keep it pretty traditional, so removing the cover is as good as I think I can get.
So if you're building a Telecaster, or looking to replace the pickups you have in one, I highly suggest the Seymour Duncan Jerry Donahue lead model! I am so happy I got it and can't really imagine another Tele without one. I have a Telecaster with Hot Rails in it, and now this one with the JD signatures in it, I think my next Telecaster will be a Thinline with P90's perhaps? They are quiet enough that hum isn't even a concern ( at least for me and where I am at anyway ) even. All I can say is that I am sold on single-coil pickups now. I just have to get the right ones put into the right guitar. Now I'm also going to have to build a Strat with single-coils to round out my collection. It may have taken nearly 30 years, but I finally see what all the hype is about really good single-coil guitars, their sound, touch and feel that guitarists rave about. There is a difference and while a well-tuned instrument of any type simply performs amazingly, there is something to a guitar that has single-coils that just talks to you.
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