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Duncan Designed pickups gone from Squier VM

6stringvince

6stringvince

Guest
Apr 29, 2012
269
13
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
#1
It looks like none of the 2014 Squier Vintage Modified line no longer carry the Duncan designed pick ups. The new pick ups are described as Fender Designed. That's a shame they were great pickups, I have had a Precision and Jaguar both with the DD pick ups and loved them both. I have just ordered a fretless jazz, I really hope it's old stock and comes with the DD pups. Fingers crossed.
 
#6
Rumor was that Fender, or their supplier, tweaked the design and was thusly able to avoid paying royalties anymore.

'Intellectual Property' is a thing sometimes taken lightly in SE Asian manufacturing. American and European firms in many sectors have contracted designs only to find them either copied outright or used as 'inspiration' for home market or OEM or even competitor's designs who also license work to the same manufacturer.
 
#9
6stringvince said:
At the end of the day, there's only a few elements that make up a pickup, magnets (ceramic or alnico), amount of wire windings being the predominant.

I know there's a few other possibilities, but really, design wise how much differences can there be from one to another?
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Enough to make them sound different obviously.

I would have thought Squier fans would be happy to get away from Duncan Designed pickups, really. My experience with them was the opposite of yours. To me they sound thin and one-dimensional, nothing like proper Basslines pickups.

But that's only logical. Duncan "designed" stuff is a cost cutting measure to meet a low price point. Dunno what the internal differences are, but you can bet SD is not going to deliver the same sound quality in their "designed" stuff, as they do in their premium lines of elecs.

Still, they sound like they sound, and if that's the sound some one likes, then more power to them.
 
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#12
Handyman said:
"Duncan designed" copies of Fender's own designs in a FMIC instrument always seemed like a bizarre marketing decision.

Fender knows how to design great pickups just fine - what do you think Duncan was copying in the first place?
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Fender do indeed know to make great pickups, as in fact very very many other people do. But I think it was a great marketing decision.

Anyone's choice of pickup is going to be a matter of taste (assuming they've the money to fund it), but SD must be right up there as perhaps the best known manufacturer of decent pickups. Having DD on there is enough to suggest that the pickups are above and beyond anything else available at the price, even if the reality might be that a cheapo off ebay could get you a very similar tone.
 
#17
Musky said:
Fender do indeed know to make great pickups, as in fact very very many other people do. But I think it was a great marketing decision.

Anyone's choice of pickup is going to be a matter of taste (assuming they've the money to fund it), but SD must be right up there as perhaps the best known manufacturer of decent pickups. Having DD on there is enough to suggest that the pickups are above and beyond anything else available at the price, even if the reality might be that a cheapo off ebay could get you a very similar tone.
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Agreed, it was a good marketing maneuver, in the sense that the Duncan's reputable good name could be displayed without actually delivering the quality that their good reputation is built on. Happens all the time with various consumer goods.

I got duped twice by the Duncan "designed" moniker, on a couple of otherwise nice Schecter basses. Won't happen again.
 
#18
6stringvince said:
It just goes to show how subjective all this stuff is. I recorded a simple bass groove with the Duncan Designed P and same thing with a Fralin P, and in my opinion the Duncan Designed sounded much better. Call me crazy but that's what my ears heard.
I guess there's no such thing as THE best colour, it comes down to what you like
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So true Vince - I play more than a few different brands of great sounding pu's of varying price range in my basses and the Duncan Designed P/J's in my VM Jag sound really good to me.

Each to their own ears. :bassist:
 
#19
Noot said:
IMO the Duncan Designed pick-ups were really bad. They had no detail, no color, no highs, no articulation, no nothing. They make even new strings sound dead. I changed the DD with a SPB-1 on a Squier VM Precision, and it was a completely different bass.
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The key here is you're talking about the precision pups. I've never heard marvelous praises of those and don't own them, so I can't comment. But the Duncan Designed jazz pickups are really great pickups for an entry-level bass. They sound amazingly like vintage single-coils, and are far superior to any of the several MIM jazz pups I've experienced.

And I'm not the only one with this opinion... Audere has some graphs buried in that website somewhere that shows frequency response of several varieties of jazz pickups they tested, including several boutique single coils. They also tested a vintage mid-70s US jazz pickup for reference. Of all the pickups they tested, only the Duncan Designed came close to the same frequency response.

Not that everyone here will think that the mid-70s Fender Jazz single coil pickups are the best possible pups, mind you. But they certainly aren't junk. They're more like funk. :bassist:

Musky said:
Fender do indeed know to make great pickups, as in fact very very many other people do. But I think it was a great marketing decision.
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Someone should tell the $600 Fender MIM people about those pickups, then. The ceramic bar pups I've gotten in the MIM Jazz basses I've had have been completely un-Jazzy. High output, which I'm sure makes many beginners think they're better, but otherwise pretty terrible. That's what was so great about the DD pickups in the VM J bass. They brought the classic J tone to the masses for a very reasonable price!

Granted, I haven't tried their replacements yet. Maybe they're as good, maybe not.
 
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#20
6stringvince said:
It just goes to show how subjective all this stuff is. I recorded a simple bass groove with the Duncan Designed P and same thing with a Fralin P, and in my opinion the Duncan Designed sounded much better. Call me crazy but that's what my ears heard.
I guess there's no such thing as THE best colour, it comes down to what you like
Click to expand...

I don't think you're crazy. When Ed Friedland compared a Squier P to his, if I recall correctly, 60s P - I thought the Squier sounded superior!
 

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