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I have a reissue 1959 Duo-Sonic that plays very well. One annoying weakness...the high-E string sounds unacceptably "thin" when I use the neck pup and roll off the tone with guitar volume set at max (for a "woman tone"). I understand that rolling off the tone will decrease the highs but my high-E's losin way too much while the other strings seem to hold their own.

I'm wondering about pots upgrade or other ways to correct that specific weakness.

In the May issue of Vintage Guitar Magazine, Will Kelly (engineer-guitar tech at Hard Knocks Guitars in Cary, NC, willkelly@nc.rr.com) highly recommends Bourns Model 82 Vintage Volume and Tone pots as a great bang-for-the-buck upgrade in tone, particularly for Strat type guitars...he's not specific about what you'll hear, but he's enthusiastic and sounds knowledgeable. I have two questions:

1) Would this be the fix or do I need to use another strategy?

2) Anyone have any experience with the Bourns pots or other upgrade pots for other Fender models?

have you tried various string gauges on that e?

Doug wrote:I have a reissue 1959 Duo-Sonic that plays very well. One annoying weakness...the high-E string sounds unacceptably "thin" when I use the neck pup and roll off the tone with guitar volume set at max (for a "woman tone"). I understand that rolling off the tone will decrease the highs but my high-E's losin way too much while the other strings seem to hold their own.

I'm wondering about pots upgrade or other ways to correct that specific weakness.

In the May issue of Vintage Guitar Magazine, Will Kelly (engineer-guitar tech at Hard Knocks Guitars in Cary, NC, willkelly@nc.rr.com) highly recommends Bourns Model 82 Vintage Volume and Tone pots as a great bang-for-the-buck upgrade in tone, particularly for Strat type guitars...he's not specific about what you'll hear, but he's enthusiastic and sounds knowledgeable. I have two questions:

1) Would this be the fix or do I need to use another strategy?

2) Anyone have any experience with the Bourns pots or other upgrade pots for other Fender models?

...1959 reissue duo-sonic?

No, GB, I've stuck with 10s and it never crossed my mind to experiment, especially since intonation can be tricky with the Duo-Sonic.

You think a thicker guage high E would make a significant difference?

The folks on here will know alot more about this stuff, but to me, it seems that while a new pot might help the tone, i don't see how it would help the single string issue.
Might also be a pickup placement issue?

gaybear wrote:The folks on here will know alot more about this stuff, but to me, it seems that while a new pot might help the tone, i don't see how it would help the single string issue.
Might also be a pickup placement issue?

Thanks. Maybe I need to raise the pickup a bit on that high-E end? Too much and the magnet will stifle the vibration of the string.

Doug wrote:Maybe I need to raise the pickup a bit on that high-E end?

Try this, you'd be surprised at the effect this can have on the sound your guitar produces. I jack my pickups up as close as I can to the strings before they produce any adverse overtones, you can get them quite close to the strings though.

mrperson wrote:

Doug wrote:Maybe I need to raise the pickup a bit on that high-E end?

Try this, you'd be surprised at the effect this can have on the sound your guitar produces. I jack my pickups up as close as I can to the strings before they produce any adverse overtones, you can get them quite close to the strings though.

Thanks, Mrp. I'll try this but I have a tech question...

Should I try raising just the high-E side of the pickup, or must I raise each side uniformly?

Just do the side you need, lots of guitars are setup this way.

You're very helpful...thanks, mate!