Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Discussion of newer designs, copies and reissue offset-waist instruments.
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honeyiscool
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Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by honeyiscool » Sat Mar 18, 2017 11:48 am

I didn't buy this guitar. A bandmate did, over Presidents' Day. But I've gotten to know it inside and out, and to experience it as a player, as a band guitar tech, and also as a bandmate hearing the guitar regularly, which means I think I can be relatively objective about it. So let's the picture out of the way:

Image

Still pictures do not adequately show how stunning this finish really is because it's not a flat pastel finish as you'd expect a surf green to be. There's real depth to the finish and when it catches stage lights just right, it does wonderful things. It's never going to look washed out when you hit it with stage lights. It will respond. So it's a looker.

Now, it's probably clear from the pictures that the guitar has not stayed stock. This doesn't necessarily mean the stock guitar is bad. It just means that I have a deep parts bin that I was willing to hit up to get that guitar just right. Ultimately, to me, a guitar's quality is not about the things screwed into it, but more about its neck, overall vibe, and its potential.

Let's start with the bad. There are two parts that are crap on the stock guitar: string tree and output jack. The output jack is of a cheap import type, and more importantly, it failed during a practice, so it really is a crap output jack. To be fair, we use wireless units which probably put a little bit extra weight on the output jack when playing seated and the strap isn't supporting it, but regardless, a Switchcraft jack has never failed during that kind of use. The string tree is of the vintage type, which isn't necessarily terrible, but they didn't put a spacer underneath it, so it's screwed all the way down to the wood. I've seen some vintage Fenders like that, too, but how do you justify this? This means that the B and E strings are going in at an angle next to sharp bent metal. Not only is this bad for tuning, but it broke a B string a couple hours after it was installed. Luckily, both of these are very simple changes.

How about the sound? I think it's actually quite good. The bridge pickup is in that nice low 8-8.5 Kohm range, and the neck pickup measures at 4-4.5, and has six AlNiCo flat magnets underneath a solid cover, which is a more vintage correct design than Fender Standard ceramic pickups. I think once you get the string heights right, they provide a really good balance. The tone pot can be pulled out to split the pickup, which is nice to see in a stock guitar. I don't particularly think the split tone is all that useful by itself, but it makes the middle position more versatile because in stock form, it actually provides a very nice sounding hum-cancelling pair with the neck.

Quality of wiring is not bad, but not stellar either. There's shielding, but it's not obsessive. However, there's enough for most users. There's foil on the pickguard, but it's in two small pieces. There isn't a gigantic piece of foil like you see on Japanese Mustang pickguards, which, by the way, does make a difference. If your pick strikes the pickguard and your guitar is under some gain, you can sometimes hear crackle if you have an unshielded pickguard. This never happens with shielded pickguards. So you might want to do this, but I'm saying this more as a hypothetical than anything that I actually experienced, because this pickguard didn't actually suffer from such static.

The pots are decent quality 500k no-name import, w/ .022 uF poly cap, and they are wired in the 50s wiring (tone pot parallel to output, not input), which is interesting. So the volume pot stays bright as you turn it down, but the tone pot cuts volume as you turn it down. Lot of vintage Les Paul dudes swear by this wiring, and it's interesting to see it in a factory Fender. Knobs are 6mm metric diameter with set screw for the metric spec solid shaft pots. The 3-way switch is an open-type and actually of good quality, but the switch tip kept unscrewing itself; a bit of blue Loctite would probably not be a bad idea.

I like the bridge. I think it's a simple design that offers stability and good intonation. Bent steel Fender saddles. Not my favorite, but people like them. The tuners are fine, standard Fender stuff. Nut is well made, I always like to run the strings I'm using through the grooves a little bit to soften it up then add a bit of nut lubricant (usually Planet Waves stuff, but it's probably just Vaseline), I think it makes a difference. And yes, I strung it with 9s because 9s on 24" scale is completely OK if you have finesse.

But really, all this is kind of besides the point. How is the guitar overall? It's absolutely fantastic. It's light, it feels great, and the neck has the right amount of chunk to it without being beefy. I just can't imagine not loving this guitar. It's an absolute player. And my bandmate has bonded with this guitar, I can easily tell. She's just really comfortable on it and doesn't fight it. She jumps around more. She turns the Princeton Reverb up higher. It looks great on stage, and it goes well with most clothing. Yes, these things are important.

It's pretty clear that women are a big part of the target audience for the Offset Series because just look at their promotional materials. There are a lot of women featured there, especially Warpaint (!). I like that they took a guitar which is clearly good for smaller players, but didn't dumb it down in any way. If anything, it's an improvement on the classic Duo-Sonic, since this one actually intonates. They even gave us a couple of features that you don't see on most entry level Mexican Fenders: an AlNiCo pickup and a push-pull split switch. And they're pricing this guitar a full $100 cheaper than a Standard Strat, so it's really a fantastic value in that regard. My bandmate got it even cheaper, but it was Presidents' Day.

Story time. Avoid this paragraph if you're gonna get all sexist up in here. I'm a guy, but I mostly play music with girls for some reason. We don't need to go into why that happens, but it happens that a couple of my female friends needed guitars early last year, both about 5'3" height. It was actually hard to even find any light guitar from one of the desirable brands out there. I mean, I love me some Squier, but it's hard to get most people excited about that on the headstock. Most Standard Strats are about 8 pounds, and Teles are usually heavier. I'm about 5'7", and I find 8 pound guitars to be acceptable, but hardly ideal. (I have a 9+ pound 5-string Jazz Bass I love, but that's a different story.) It's one of the reasons I mostly play Mustangs. Anyway, the only guitars that really fit the weight and budget under the Fender umbrella were maybe one of the discontinued Modern Player models, maybe the P90 Mustang or one of the thinline Teles. But it was slim pickings. There's the Gibson SG, of course, but they're a bit more expensive and they have their own problems, IMO. PRS SE is really nice, actually, but yeah... moving on.... Eventually, I just found cheap Strats, one blacktop and one Standard, and the girls just had to live with a heavier guitar, but you can see that this situation isn't always ideal for people who don't consider playing guitar to be some macho event and don't find heavy guitars to be necessary or useful. I'm sure they would have been more excited with a smaller, lighter guitar that didn't break the bank. That's the other thing. Even if you have a light Strat, maybe on 6'4" dude, a Strat looks small, but for a 5'3" girl, it's looks quite big. Plus, I feel like Strats wear poorly on a lot of girls; Teles, LPs, and Jazzmasters seem to do better. But yeah, it's no Annie Clark signature, but the Duo-Sonic/Mustang does a really good job of wearing nicely on a smaller girl and working with their curves instead of against them.

OK, so that's my take on this guitar. It's great. Strong enough for a man, but also great for a woman. Only needs a new jack and a string tree mod to be your new best friend. Surf Pearl is amazing. Capri Orange is stunning, too, by the way, but we figured that since all her guitars have humbuckers, so should this one. It was the right choice. Plus, Capri Orange is really loud. It might be great now and then, but it's quite a color to commit to if you don't have a huge number of guitars.

----

And now, the fun part, where I talk about all the mods:
  • String Tree: Put a GraphTech white TUSQ XL. No brainer, really.
  • Wiring: While I was down there changing the jack, I changed out everything. I used a Gibson 300k linear volume potentiometer, you know the ones that Gibson forum dudes always ditch? Well, I actually really like them as volume pots, and I have a pile of them. I think they're the best pots for humbucker-equipped guitars. They have just the right resistance, and the linear taper is great for dialing in a tube amp that's at 5 or 6. The shaft on them is made of solid brass, so when you put a sleeve on it, it works great with the stock knobs. A bit ludicrous putting a long shaft pot on a pickguard guitar, but whatever. I used a Bourns solid shaft push-pull pot for tone, 500k audio, which have metric shafts, and a 0.022uF poly cap, still using stock knobs. Kept the 50s wiring. Switchcraft jack and switch.
  • Saddles: I much prefer block saddles. Intonation screws don't stick up. Strings stay centered. Good ones don't affect your tone negatively. I used to use GraphTech, but I've soured on them recently. GFS sells 2 1/16" spacing steel saddles, which are cheap, great quality, and perfect for this guitar. I have a few sets in my drawer. Installed them, happy with results.
  • Tuner: I have some standard Fender locking tuners lying around, so I installed them. They just dropped right in, no screw holes. Locking tuners are useful, I like them.
  • Pickup: I tried various different pickups that were sitting around in my parts drawer. The stock pickups, DiMarzio Bluesbucker (for bridge), DiMarzio Injector Neck, also DiMarzio Area 58. Clearly the winner for this guitar was the combination of Area 58 and stock humbucker. While on another amp, the Bluesbucker/Injector combo worked really well, on the Princeton Reverb, it just didn't sound very good, way too much of everything. I sat with the Princeton Reverb trying out pickups and different pot values and things like that, and this was the magical combination. By the way, the stock humbucker is out of phase with the Area 58 unless you flip green and red on the Area, but weirdly, the Area 58 was also out of phase with the Bluesbucker. You'd think the manual would say something about that, but way to go, DiMarzio. I really do think the Area 58 is a magic neck pickup, though. It just works.
  • Series/Parallel: After installing the Area 58, I kind of wanted the push-pull to make the humbucker go series/parallel instead of coil split, so that it'd still cancel hum. Stock humbucker is 3-conductor with shield and goes from red to white to green to shield. So it is possible to make the push-pull do parallel/series pretty easily. Say this is how the pot looks:

    1 2
    3 4
    5 6
    ---
    Pot

    Disconnect the bridge humbucker from the switch and free up the white and green wires from each other and the heat shrink. There should be a long wire that is performing coil split, we can repurpose this wire as the output from the push-pull. Make it so that 6 is ground + humbucker ground (was already grounded in this guitar, so made use of existing wiring), 4 is white, 2 and 1 are connected, 3 is humbucker green, and 5 is humbucker red + output wire. Now connect that long output wire where the bridge goes on the 3-way switch, and you've made a parallel-series option for the humbucker.

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Re: Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by Danley » Sun Mar 19, 2017 7:46 am

I remove those string tree spacers in emulation of vintage Fenders. No tuning issues :) You can shim the neck and raise the saddles to get the intonation screws down if it bugs you.

Great sounding/feeling guitars, I much prefer their build quality and aesthetic to most MIC/CIJ guitars. Finishes are gorgeous.
King Buzzo: I love when people come up to me and say “Your guitar sound was better on Stoner Witch, when you used a Les Paul. “...I used a Fender Mustang reissue on that, dumbass!

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Re: Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by stirange » Sun Mar 19, 2017 7:47 pm

Thanks for the detailed review. I wasn't a huge fan of the bridge on my offset mustang either. In case you're interested, I'll go and ahead and paste a thread I made in which I detailed replacing the bent saddle bridge with a block style bridge from a UK part store.
I assume the the duos and 'stangs have the same spacing. It installed easy peasy https://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vi ... 6&t=103385" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

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Re: Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by honeyiscool » Fri Mar 24, 2017 3:00 pm

stirange wrote:Thanks for the detailed review. I wasn't a huge fan of the bridge on my offset mustang either. In case you're interested, I'll go and ahead and paste a thread I made in which I detailed replacing the bent saddle bridge with a block style bridge from a UK part store.
I assume the the duos and 'stangs have the same spacing. It installed easy peasy viewtopic.php?f=6&t=103385.
Cool! I'm fairly certain Duo/Mustang consist of identical parts. The bridge you installed is of good design. I like the lip, it definitely classes it up a bit. You could probably just swap the saddles like I did if you didn't like it, I'm sure. Most of these metric spec bridges have interchangeable everything.

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Re: Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by stirange » Sat Mar 25, 2017 4:59 pm

yeah, I thought about doing that, but the new bridge was cheap enough to make replacing the old one worth it.

I was wondering if you have any suggestion for single-coil sized hum bucker pickups for my 'stang. I currently have a JB jr. in the bridge, but it's just to harsh for me. I can get it to sound good by taming the tone and volume, but I'd rather have a pickup that allows me to use the full range.

I actually originally intended to buy the HB duo sonic, but I found my mustang in barley used condition for 100 bucks off. I also prefer the body style, color and a maple fret board. Thanks!

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Re: Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by indiandysummer » Sat Mar 25, 2017 7:39 pm

I like those 330k linear volume pots too! I have them on one of those squier teles with a JM neck pickup (with 250k tone pot). The long shaft looks a bit odd, but I like the taper and the little added brightness.

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Re: Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by honeyiscool » Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:09 am

stirange wrote:yeah, I thought about doing that, but the new bridge was cheap enough to make replacing the old one worth it.

I was wondering if you have any suggestion for single-coil sized hum bucker pickups for my 'stang. I currently have a JB jr. in the bridge, but it's just to harsh for me. I can get it to sound good by taming the tone and volume, but I'd rather have a pickup that allows me to use the full range.

I actually originally intended to buy the HB duo sonic, but I found my mustang in barley used condition for 100 bucks off. I also prefer the body style, color and a maple fret board. Thanks!
There's always, say, a DiMarzio Injector Bridge. It's voiced a bit more like a single coil than a humbucker, but it pretty much gets the job done, IMO.

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Re: Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by HNB » Sun Mar 26, 2017 8:19 am

Great and detailed review Honey!
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Re: Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by Smokeymarshall » Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:43 pm

Hey there! Is the humbucker alnico as well? This info would really help. Thank you!

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Re: Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by guitarguitar » Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:05 pm

Cool, thanks for the review! I have one myself (same color), but I've kept everything stock for now. No mods yet...

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Re: Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by Mr Bigglesworth » Wed Jan 24, 2018 6:16 am

Great review, thanks for taking the time! I am very interested in the Duo-Sonic and did get to try one and it felt great (neck) and sounded great.

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Re: Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by MKR » Wed Jan 24, 2018 7:30 am

interesting thread.

I'm in the market for a new guitar and i am eyeballing either the new duo's or the new hardtail mustangs. Does anyone know if the pickups are the same for both of these models?

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Re: Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by kingmedicine » Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:47 am

My wife has one of the Mustangs and I had one of the Duo Sonics with the two single coils briefly at one point, the pickups sounded the same to my ears and if I remember correctly looked the same construction wise and everything. I got rid of the Duo because they sounded so similar (maybe the angled pickup makes some difference on the Mustang, but it was never enough that either of us noticed it).

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Re: Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by JPCordingley » Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:51 pm

I’ve tried one of each of these in the stores, and really enjoyed playing them but couldn’t take the plunge because I’d want a Mustang type trem if I was going to buy a Mustang type instrument. They were both beautifully finished. The Mustang was in that gorgeous Olive Green colour that Fender slapped on a few models last year. The Duo (which was the HS one) was extra special looking. Daphne Blue (I think) with a mint guard and a vein of orangey coloured sap-wood running the length of the rosewood fingerboard. Made for a really vibrant looking guitar and I liked the sounds too. Seems there’s not a lot of difference between the two models in this series though - a different pickguard shape is basically all there is to tell them apart.

By the way, you’re right about Mustangs/Duos being good for smaller women (or smaller men - hence why Kurt Cobain loved them). My girlfriend had a VM Mustang which she loved. I recommended she try out a Jag or a Mustang for the shorter scale, but the Jag’s body was too big. The Mustang’s slender body really fit her, especially as she’s 5’2. Unfortunately she sold it due to financial reasons. I loved playing it too. She gets by playing my Jazzmaster for now, but the body is too big really (but it’s better for her than my Starcaster which is way too big). Certainly a new Mustang for her is the next guitar that will enter the house.

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Re: Long Review of Duo-Sonic HS Surf Pearl

Post by JagInTheBag » Fri Feb 02, 2018 2:10 pm

I would have skipped all the parts swapping and bought a G&L Fallout.

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