Duncan Designed.........Trash or Treasure!?!?!?

[beaubrummels]

I have a poplar / neck-through Jackson SL3 also. The pickups actually sound great, especially the neck has a great strat tone considering it's pushed back by the 24 frets, but for some reason in this guitar for me they sound noticeably dark, or like good pickups but there's a blanket over them. I have also have the Designed Distortion in a Gibson Melody Maker and it's great in there. Has a lot of range working the volume and is plenty lively in that one.

[80's_Thrash_Metal]

Detonators are legit pickups.

[Ewizard]

I have a full set ( 3 ) of the original ( late 90's early 2000's ) Duncan designed Strat before they went to the HR model name. They are definitely hot. The hottest output pickup I think they make is the hot rails for tele set, those things produce some serious output. I have become more and more a fan of medium output single coils as of late and humbucking pickups that years ago I thought were the Bee's Knee's are now getting yanked one by one in favor of single coils.

I have a Duncan designed humbucker set in my Cameo Deluxe SG ( 1960's Japan knock off ) and I really like it in there. The original pickups gave up the ghost in 2001 and I bought the DD's from Guitar Center when they were a store brand. I haven't found a reason to want to change those ones out yet. I have an 80's era Epiphone SG that I can't find a set of pickups I am happy with for it to save my life. Still on the hunt for that one. I am thinking I may custom make a set for that guitar; it seems needy.

[Jack_TriPpEr]

I recently acquired a mid-2000s Squier Satin Trans Strat HSS guitar that reportedly features a Duncan Designed humbucker, per the product pages for this guitar at the Zzounds and FuzzFaced websites.

https://www.zzounds.com/item--SQU321730

https://www.fuzzfaced.net/squier-satin-trans-fat-stratocaster.html

Anybody know what particular model of DD humbucker this would be?

BTW, it sounds decent as a humbucker, but sadly enough, it came wired from the factory out-of-phase with the middle pickup in splitcoil mode in Position 2, I haven't had an opportunity to get in there and rewire the HB yet, so i don't yet know how good or bad its splitcoil tone is.

[Adieu]

HB108's are awesome

[UnderTheFlame83]

Duncan Designed pickups are great. The Detonators are my favourite.

[JMP/HBE]

junk in my experience.

[skyydogg01]

And its working. I'm going to stick it into my little Rockmaster today, and remind myself of what it is.

How's it working out for you?

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[GuitarStv]

The Duncan designed vintage J-Bass pickups that came in my Squire VM are decent pickups.

[Masta' C]

Artie, your version was produced for the Squier Vintage Modified HSS Strat around 2010. As Skydogg01 mentioned, it's the same pickup that was originally used in the earlier Ibanez SZ 5XX/7XX series and is based on the HB-103. The main difference between yours and the Ibanez version is that the hex pole pieces are black on yours and a slightly different length than the Ibanez hex poles.

I got my hands on a few as leftover stock from Fender and ended up selling that majority of them to forum bros back in like 2011. I sold a few that were stock and one that I had swapped in an A8 mag (sold to Dominus), but never used. If you possibly bought it from him, take a look at the mag...if it's shiny, it's the A8 modded one I did.

junk in my experience.

Pretty sure you just copy and paste this same response in every post LOL!

[ArtieToo]

Artie, your version was produced for the Squier Vintage Modified HSS Strat around 2010. As Skydogg01 mentioned, it's the same pickup that was originally used in the earlier Ibanez SZ 5XX/7XX series and is based on the HB-103. The main difference between yours and the Ibanez version is that the hex pole pieces are black on yours and a slightly different length than the Ibanez hex poles.

I got my hands on a few as leftover stock from Fender and ended up selling that majority of them to forum bros back in like 2011. I sold a few that were stock and one that I had swapped in an A8 mag (sold to Dominus), but never used. If you possibly bought it from him, take a look at the mag...if it's shiny, it's the A8 modded one I did.

I know I bought it from someone in the forum. It might have been you.

I'll try to install it and listen to it. But Christmas stuff is in the way. In a good way.

Oh yeah, as a foot note. My DD 59's, in my Daisy Rock (Schecter) Champaign Sparkle axe . . . is a match made in heaven. Sweet, clean, perfect.

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Anybody know what kind of Duncan Design humbucker is in the guitar I posted about back in Reply #19?

[beaubrummels]

Anybody know what kind of Duncan Design humbucker is in the guitar I posted about back in Reply #19?

Doesn't seem to be specific info online. If you have the guitar in hand, the easiest way is loosen the strings, pull the humbucker out of the route and flip it over to get the number off the sticker. Then someone here can tell you what it's Duncan equivalent is. (E.g. HB101 is a 59, HB103 is a Distortion)

[Masta' C]

Anybody know what kind of Duncan Design humbucker is in the guitar I posted about back in Reply #19?

There's no info out there about that pickup specifically. Even the Squier spec sheet for that model just says "Duncan Designed". Likely an HB-101 ('59) or HB-102 (JB), but I find it interesting that they specify "Alnico" for the singles, yet don't mention if the bridge is also Alnico-based or not.

Since you have the guitar, it seems logical to just take a look yourself and let US know!

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Doesn't seem to be specific info online. If you have the guitar in hand, the easiest way is loosen the strings, pull the humbucker out of the route and flip it over to get the number off the sticker. Then someone here can tell you what it's Duncan equivalent is. (E.g. HB101 is a 59, HB103 is a Distortion)

Finally got around to checking out the underside of this Bridge HB.

Sticker reads HB102B. See attached pic This web article says a 102 is like a JB. Is that accurate? https://web.archive.org/web/20200210...signed-pickups

And regarding how I reported previously that Position 2 sounded Out Of Phase on this guitar: looking in the control cavity I found that the Green (South Start) wire was wired as Hot, and Black (North Start) was wired as Ground. So yep, the pup is wired in reverse. And, I saw that there is no auto-split arrangement in Position 2, so it featurea the full humbucker plus middle pup. I am about to rectify that as well.

Will report back how Position 2 sounds after the rewire.