Ibanez True-Duo Bucker

[Funkfingers]

Any opinions - positive or negative - on the Ibanez True Duo Bucker? Specifically, does anybody think that the Ibanez TDB is any good in the neck position?

I am about to remove a TDB from the bridge position of an Ibanez SA series guitar. I cannot decide whether to dump the pickup on an Internet auction site or save it for another project?

Thank you in advance.

 

[CTN]

Re: Ibanez True-Duo Bucker

personally, i didn't like them at all.

they're not bad pickups per se, they just don't sound great. I found them very present in the mids, without a nice bottom or top end. Just kinda thin and not meaty at all. They're built very strangely.

There are two coils side by side, and below one of the coils, there's another coil.

The two side by side coils, are the humbucking coils. The coil that has another coil beneath it utilizes magnetic polepieces. The other coil uses its own dedicated thick ceramic magnet and allen screws. As a humbucker, it sounds weak, since the coil sizes are not very big to begin with. It doesn't sound hot, or fat, or anything. It just sounds...like it's there.

The one on top of the other coils are supposed to act as a stack together. These are likewise not wound hot or anything, so they're pretty lifeless sounding too.

It's a cool idea i guess, merging a stack with a humbucker in a single humbucker size pickup. If they pulled it off well, it'd make a hella versatile pickup, which is what they were going for. IMO, however, they didn't pull it off well, which left all the switching options sounding for the most part almost the same. Barely any discernable difference.

I gutted mine, and scavenged the magnets and allen screws.

edit: if you really wanna sell them, head over to the Ibanez forum... they go ga-ga over these pups for some bizarre reason

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Ibanez True-Duo Bucker

^
Thank you, CTN. You have pretty much confirmed my suspicions about the pickup. I just wanted to make sure that the problem on the Ibanez SA was the OEM pickups rather than, say, its cheap 'n' nasty vibrato bridge.

Ho, hum. I feel a major upgrade project coming on.

 

[CTN]

Re: Ibanez True-Duo Bucker

No prob! When I replaced the TDBs with the C5/Jazz, it made such a huge difference to my tone. It was like replacing a thin anemic McDonald's burger with a juicy T-Bone steak.

Although I'm still not totally satisfied. The bridge on mine, (SAT II Pro) isn't terrible, but I can hear how it's holding back the tone of the guitar. I want to replace it as well, but I don't know what to get. the two point post spacing is the same as a Floyd, but it's obviously not routed for a floyd, so to upgrade, my only real option is to rout for a floyd, install said floyd (Gotoh most likely) and install a locking nut, which is still major modification to the headstock.

The stock nut is also starting to bug me a lot. the G string keeps getting stuck in its slot. It looks like a cheap plastic nut. I'm thinking about getting a graph-tech Black Tusq nut to replace it.


In fact, now that I think about it, except for the construction, this whole guitar has made me dislike ibanez even more than i did before. The nut sucks, the tuners are ok at best, stock pups sucked, stock electronics were ok (thank god they haven't died yet), stock bridge is ok but has tarnished terribly, and the inlays are terrible.

ugh.

I'm lucky it still somehow plays really well, or else I probably would never have picked it up.