Masta' C
New member
I bought some Duality bridge pickups a couple months ago hoping...nay...praying that they would be THE answer to my wish for a "hot vintage" passive sound and feel in an active pickup design. Once I heard SD was using Alnico 2 magnets on these and a whole new preamp architecture to "let more of the passive voice through", I was sold!
It took me a few weeks to get them installed and give the new design a try, but now that I've had some time with the bridge model, I figured I'd share my thoughts on it...
First, if Angus Young went to Seymour Duncan and said he wanted to create an active pickup, I feel like this could very well be his signature model or at least something close to it. From the get-go, there's a cool classic rock voicing to it that isn't quite PAF and isn't quite EMG or Blackouts. In fact, I really haven't heard anything quite like it before, but it pairs well with a gritty Marshall type amp, does '70s hard rock and the "Texas" thing very well and actually sounds really good for finger-picked rock and blues styles, including ZZ Top, etc.
Now, before you start thinking this is THE vintage-meets-modern pickup to buy, let me tell you about its shortcomings, because there are a few.
First, it has a huge bottom end. And, no, not the firm kind you see on the gym girls at 5am, but more of a "you can take my baby, you can take my pride, but you can't take my cheese pizza" kind of a bottom end. It's boomy...overly so. It still manages decent articulation on the lower notes, but I really had to adjust the whole bass side of the pickup down a lot compared to the treble side to balance things out in both guitars I tried it in and I only play with 9s or 10s for strings. In my opinion, SD's EQ chart undersells the bass response by a large margin.
Second, it's not nearly as tight as advertised. Duncan claims the Duality is "powerful and tight enough for metal". Now, I wasn't expecting EMG 81 tight, mind you, and I know great "metal" has been made with pickups seemingly far less capable than this one, but that big bottom end response I just mentioned comes at a price and that price is tightness. Ultimately, the Duality bridge is not all that great for the heavy handed palm-muters among us. I mean, palm mutes ring out like thunder rolling across the sky, but if you want to ride the lightning, this pickup isn't really up to it (James Hetfield would be sad).
Third, the mid-mids have a rather strange compression. At first, I couldn't put my finger on what I was hearing. For one thing, the notes are well defined and, in glorious Alnico II fashion, there's a little of that "chewy" quality to the central midrange that I kind of expected and even sort of wanted, but it tends to have a bit of a "blanket over the speakers" thing happening right before it starts to breathe again in the upper mids. In some pickups, this kind of quality gives the notes a sort of "bloom" as you move up the strings, but it just doesn't work well here. Like I said, the pickup is very clear sounding like actives tend to be and solos are definitely articulate, but the mid-mids just aren't as open and dynamic as I was hoping this new design would yield.
Fourth, the treble gets quite peaky. Not in a JB "upper-mid hump" sort of way or quite like the 59's potential thinness in some guitars, but in the sense that the top end response is quite strident, broad and really extended frequency-wise. In Keith Merrow's demo video of the Duality set (below), you can sort of hear this boomy bottom/stuffy mids/spikey top thing going on whenever he plays the bridge pickup (make sure you're using good speakers or headphones). I didn't notice it initially, but after playing the pickup in person, I now can't UN-hear it. I've decided that Keith really did an incredible job working with the inherent tone and response characteristics of the Duality set in that video!
Lastly, that bright, nearly three-dimensional top end response doesn't carry over to very good upper-mid cut. If you only play crunchy rock style riffs or are more of a "shredder" who does lots of soloing/single-note runs, you may not care as much, because the pickup still has good presence overall. However, if you're into '80s rock solos or like to dabble in more dynamic styles like Van Halen, you might find the upper-mids a bit buried when chording and lacking the sparkle and presence of pickups like the '78, Pearly Gates or JB.
I admit to having had rather high hopes going in, but it makes sense as to why I have seen more used Duality pickups for sale than actual player reviews about them. I think buyers figure out pretty quickly whether these pickups are for them or not. For those wanting a fuller, hi-fi classic rock sound with the benefits of an active design, they are really good. For metal and progressive styles, I can see them excelling at creating ambience and atmosphere as seen in Keith's demo. However, for me, I think I'll stick to regular passives for now and wait for the next pickup based on the Duality technology to come about...
Edit: I do want add that the Duality has more headroom and a more reasonable output than any of the Blackouts I have tried (i.e. the AHB-1 and EMTY sets) and is rather responsive to volume knob adjustments.
It took me a few weeks to get them installed and give the new design a try, but now that I've had some time with the bridge model, I figured I'd share my thoughts on it...
First, if Angus Young went to Seymour Duncan and said he wanted to create an active pickup, I feel like this could very well be his signature model or at least something close to it. From the get-go, there's a cool classic rock voicing to it that isn't quite PAF and isn't quite EMG or Blackouts. In fact, I really haven't heard anything quite like it before, but it pairs well with a gritty Marshall type amp, does '70s hard rock and the "Texas" thing very well and actually sounds really good for finger-picked rock and blues styles, including ZZ Top, etc.
Now, before you start thinking this is THE vintage-meets-modern pickup to buy, let me tell you about its shortcomings, because there are a few.
First, it has a huge bottom end. And, no, not the firm kind you see on the gym girls at 5am, but more of a "you can take my baby, you can take my pride, but you can't take my cheese pizza" kind of a bottom end. It's boomy...overly so. It still manages decent articulation on the lower notes, but I really had to adjust the whole bass side of the pickup down a lot compared to the treble side to balance things out in both guitars I tried it in and I only play with 9s or 10s for strings. In my opinion, SD's EQ chart undersells the bass response by a large margin.
Second, it's not nearly as tight as advertised. Duncan claims the Duality is "powerful and tight enough for metal". Now, I wasn't expecting EMG 81 tight, mind you, and I know great "metal" has been made with pickups seemingly far less capable than this one, but that big bottom end response I just mentioned comes at a price and that price is tightness. Ultimately, the Duality bridge is not all that great for the heavy handed palm-muters among us. I mean, palm mutes ring out like thunder rolling across the sky, but if you want to ride the lightning, this pickup isn't really up to it (James Hetfield would be sad).
Third, the mid-mids have a rather strange compression. At first, I couldn't put my finger on what I was hearing. For one thing, the notes are well defined and, in glorious Alnico II fashion, there's a little of that "chewy" quality to the central midrange that I kind of expected and even sort of wanted, but it tends to have a bit of a "blanket over the speakers" thing happening right before it starts to breathe again in the upper mids. In some pickups, this kind of quality gives the notes a sort of "bloom" as you move up the strings, but it just doesn't work well here. Like I said, the pickup is very clear sounding like actives tend to be and solos are definitely articulate, but the mid-mids just aren't as open and dynamic as I was hoping this new design would yield.
Fourth, the treble gets quite peaky. Not in a JB "upper-mid hump" sort of way or quite like the 59's potential thinness in some guitars, but in the sense that the top end response is quite strident, broad and really extended frequency-wise. In Keith Merrow's demo video of the Duality set (below), you can sort of hear this boomy bottom/stuffy mids/spikey top thing going on whenever he plays the bridge pickup (make sure you're using good speakers or headphones). I didn't notice it initially, but after playing the pickup in person, I now can't UN-hear it. I've decided that Keith really did an incredible job working with the inherent tone and response characteristics of the Duality set in that video!
Lastly, that bright, nearly three-dimensional top end response doesn't carry over to very good upper-mid cut. If you only play crunchy rock style riffs or are more of a "shredder" who does lots of soloing/single-note runs, you may not care as much, because the pickup still has good presence overall. However, if you're into '80s rock solos or like to dabble in more dynamic styles like Van Halen, you might find the upper-mids a bit buried when chording and lacking the sparkle and presence of pickups like the '78, Pearly Gates or JB.
I admit to having had rather high hopes going in, but it makes sense as to why I have seen more used Duality pickups for sale than actual player reviews about them. I think buyers figure out pretty quickly whether these pickups are for them or not. For those wanting a fuller, hi-fi classic rock sound with the benefits of an active design, they are really good. For metal and progressive styles, I can see them excelling at creating ambience and atmosphere as seen in Keith's demo. However, for me, I think I'll stick to regular passives for now and wait for the next pickup based on the Duality technology to come about...
Edit: I do want add that the Duality has more headroom and a more reasonable output than any of the Blackouts I have tried (i.e. the AHB-1 and EMTY sets) and is rather responsive to volume knob adjustments.
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