Duncan Pickup Booster Guide

Title: Pound for Pound...it works!

There are lots of ways to boost and buffer your guitar signal, some work others don't work so well. That is the beauty of ebay, you can buy used or new and experiment till your hearts content. If it doesn't work out for you, put it back on and give it a chance to work for someone else.
Pound for pound, for the money, bang-for-the-buck it's hard to beat this pedal.
After playing for 35+ years my search is about over. I tried the standards like the old reliable MXR Micro Amp and it was a fine unit, I tried high-dollar pedals like the SHO etc.....but none really worked for me so the search continued, and ebay can be a vast and fun space to look for your sound! Searching musical instruments is a great way to discover new and old things.
Now, keeping in mind that a pedal (any pedal) must work with "your" setup is the most important thing to remember.
My setup is moderate-high gain. An older Marshall MKII 100w modded with a 4th pre amp tube etc or a DSL50.
Either of these amp will find excessive noise in the line and put it right in your face. 
The Duncan Pickup Booster is very quiet with my setup.  I bought one and liked it so much I bought another to keep at home.  Friends that tried it went out and bought their own.  It just works.

I'll go over some things.........
Clean Boost: 
This thing is very transparent and sensitive to your pickups and playing. You don't feel that there is something between you and your amp. Set to its lowest setting there is still a 6db boost, but that is a good thing. The sensitivity of your strings becomes magnified. I have heard some people say the 6db can overload their pre amp or cause a muddy sound. And this is possible, I noticed many times I will kick the "gain" on the amp down a notch to take care of that issue. But, even with the amp gain turned down the sensitivity of the guitar is still there.

Push that amp:
Turn up the gain to around 1/2 way and you begin to really push the amp.  The amp responds with natural tube compression and sustain, yet retains it's clarity and your guitar becomes very sensitive and alive, not distorted.
It also works well as a Lead-Boost for solos.  The thing I do like is it retains all the subtle stuff too.  If I turn the guitar volume down it cleans up really nicely.

The Tone Switch:
Though this is a great way to take the annoying bite off of some strats or teles it also can work for you and your humbucks.
When you play loudly the high end can get off the hook on any guitar. The old , obvious answer is to just turn the high end down on the amp, and that can work. But sometimes that path can make your sound box-like too.  By keeping the high end in the amp and setting the tone switch to the forward position it just wacks off the "bad" stuff and keeps it all fat.
Like I mentioned, this comes into play at higher volumes. If you play on 2 through a clean amp you may not need or appreciate this feature.  The tone switch in it's rear position does about the same thing just a little more of it.  I once had a  Mex Tele that I put Fender noiseless pickups in. At high volume levels with the tone switch to the rear that thing had balls-deluxe!  But always sounded like a Tele.

True Bypass:
If you know me at all you know I like true bypass, a lot  ;-)
When you step on this switch the pedal is gone from your signal chain.
A beautiful thing!

Things to look for:
Many of the earlier models were plagued with two bad things...........
The ability to turn your amp into an AM radio and a footswitch that was prone to failure in a short time.
Both can be very unsettling, especially at high levels.
But, not to worry, read on.....

Customer Service:
If by chance you encounter either of these problems, just call Duncan, I did, and they took it back and fixed it free.
In one instance they just sent a new one...!   Dealing with them is a very pleasant experience, they are good people there.

Happy tone shopping!