Duncan Designed P-90's

[Detroitblues]

I really enjoy a Fender Squier Telecaster Custom II I bought from a friend of mine. Its a straight up screaming rock guitar....But there are a few hitches that I'm not liking...

Muddy- When I roll down the volume controls, either pickup gets really muddy. I lose all the tone I like and the guitar becomes unplayable without tweaking my amp controls. I'm a firm believer in set and forget when it comes to amps and use the guitar volume and tone controls for any tweaking (except for Master volume)

Roll off of volume- I don't notice a roll off of volume cutting down the gain until the volume is nearly off. My humbucker and single coil guitar do not do this. I can roll back the volume of the Seth Lovers or the Strat and clean up the sound... It doesn't work with these P-90's.

Noise! I've been using my Strats for a long time on some of the same stages, never has 60 cycle hum been a problem... But with these P-90's, its a huge problem. I can't even hit the middle position to get rid of the noise.

As much as I like the full bore open controls of this Tele when playing rock, I can't clean it up where the guitar is usable.

What options do I have to fix this? Will a treble bleed mod help with the controls? Should I switch out the P-90's for humbuckers? Will Mini humbuckers or Filtron type pickups fit? Should I replace the scratchy pots?

Any advice is welcome. The very last thing I want to do is replace this guitar, so I don't want to go there if I can help it.

 

[dr. ad]

Re: Duncan Designed P-90's

i have one of these too, and found the stock pickups just as you describe. they still sound good with less gain, but once you're playing at volume it gets very noisy indeed...

the body's routed for buckers so all you'd need to go down that road is a replacement pickguard (ie the other squier tele custom model)
the screw holes won't all line up but it'll get you to the point where the hum and squeal isn't completely out of control.

there's very little in the way of shielding on these, so that could be something to investigate as well.

they're a very playable guitar for the money, have fun working on it
: ]

 

[John Cambo]

Re: Duncan Designed P-90's

I've had those pickups and was not a fan. Some of the duncan designs are good, in particular, the 59 clone but those P90's should be replaced. Lots of options out there and as mentioned above, shield the guitar too, unless you go humbucking.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Duncan Designed P-90's

I have the same guitar. The pots are dogbreath linear taper efforts. I cannot remember whether they are 1Meg rather than 500k. I am not going to raise the pickguard just to take a look.

I like the Squier's stock pickups. (I also use SD Custom and Antiquity P90s.) I changed the bridge saddles on my Squier to GraphTech String Savers. This definitely improved the tone.