I've played a Duesenberg once, but I can't remember how it sounded or felt! With VR, Duff plays mostly Fenders, a black Aerdodyne one, his signature one in white and I think another signature one in black. They all sound similar, deep lows and snarling highs, hardly any mides so as to not get into the way of the guitars, he picks right over the splitcoil and must have the pups close to the strings, so its clacke-dee-clacke-dee-oooomph-oooomph all of the time. He probably switches basses because they have different tunings (they're all four strings). When he played the Duesnberg, he suddenly had rich mids and a more subtle, less focused low end plus the snarling highs were gone. He used it for the more ballady stuff only.
I read in an interview how he is - when he's not rehabbing or doing martial arts - currently taking bass lessons because he wants to play finger style rather than pick style. He attempted that a few times during the gig, chucking away his pick and playing - a little awkwardly - with his fingers. It hugely influenced his sound. Since he's not a seasoned finger player, his signal became very uneven, lost focus and volume and all that clacke-dee-clack attack was immediately gone, all you could here attackwise was the strings hitting the pups now and then. He soon reverted to pick playing, but tried finger style again later. He'll get better over time I'm sure
(as a non finger player all my sympathies are with him, my finger playing is ghastly too).
Uwe
