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Post subject: P Bass Pickup Question
Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 1:08 pm
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Hello All,

A friend/bandmember has asked me to mod his P Bass copy. It is a Mako from Korea. It is a fine bass but after opening it up the electronics are low quality. I have no idea what the pickups are and they also lack tone. He asked me because I have done serveral strats and a '78 Jazz so I'm fairly knowledgeable in those instruments as I play both and are my go to guitars/bass.

My question is what are some of the more popular P Bass pickups available? I upgraded my Jazz to Bartolini's and swear by these bad boy pickups. I haven't heard much of Bartolini's in a P Bass configuration and wanted to get some input from those who have have upgraded their P Bass pups and the type of tone you experienced. My friend doesn't want a bright sound is all I can interpret from him. He really isn't a tone freak and novice player but my ear (I'm a tone freak) can tell he needs to change out the pickups. His style is classic rock to metal so something that would fit those genre's would be good.

Thanks!

db


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Post subject: Re: P Bass Pickup Question
Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 2:04 pm
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Location: Albemarle, NC
By saying he doesn't want bright sort of narrows it down.

The Seymour Duncan SPB-2 is overwound. This yields higher output and kills the upper mids for a tone that is loud and bass heavy. It sounds good with a pick. I'd avoid the other 2 SD's as they are brighter. Lots of dealers sell these online. It is also reasonable in cost due being mass produced at around $65 most places.

Another good full sounding reasonably priced pickup to consider is the WILDE P-46 which costs $60 at http://wildepickups.com/Bass_Pickups.html
The WILDE is the latest and probably last pickup designs from Bill Lawrence, who designed pickups for both Fender and Gibson at various times. The Wilde bass pickups are potted in plastic resin (like Lucite) and likely will outlive any player. They are also very versatile working in 4 or 5 string basses. It is safe to say there is not another P-Bass pickup like it. There is a brand actually called Bill Lawrence also, but those are not the ones I'm talking about because that is a brand he sold off completely decades ago and those are old designs he did 30 years ago or more. WILDE pickups are his latest designs.

I can't see spending a lot of money on this thing, so I'd not suggest getting a custom pickup overwound from any of the custom shops and stick to mass produced or even used parts for it. I would however absolutely scope out used electronics assemblies on eBay. Sometimes someone will sell the complete electronics from a MIM Fender Standard P-Bass on eBay including pots, jack, cap and pickup. That might be the most economical way to upgrade it if you can find a satisfactory package deal with everything included.

One caution is that often on these instruments you have issues fitting stock sized USA/MIM Fender and OEM Fender sized components including pickups and pots to Asian made basses. You may have to expand the pickup routing in the body and pickguard cutout on some of them a few millimeters. If it has mini-pots or even certain full-sized Asian pots you might have to expand the control shaft holes on the pickguard or control plate by re-drilling them so they will accept standard CTS sized pot shafts which are usually larger than the Asian ones. I use a Dremel tool on routings and pickguard cutouts and a drill on the control shaft holes.

Often Asian basses will come with 500K pots and other times 250K. 250K pots trim upper mids, 500K pots allow more of them to pass. If 250K pots are already in there and the pots work fine I wouldn't bother replacing them. Almost always there is no tonal benefit from swapping 250K Asian pots for 250K CTS ones. Tonally 250K is 250K. But if they are 500K pots I'd change them to 250K. If the original pots are mini-pots make sure the control routing will accommodate full sized CTS pots as you'll have to expand the control cavity sometimes, again the Dremel tool usually works for this.

With an overwound pickup about any type tone cap would be satisfactory, I'd suggest for the type music specified that a vintage ceramic disc or Poly Orange Drop would be fine, or just use the one in there which is probably one of the tiny Poly chicklet types. It should be in the ballpark of 0.05uF. I'd probably go with the vintage ceramic disc since they are so cheap, like a dollar and deliver a slightly thicker sounding tone witih an overwound pickup. The ceramic discs are less pleasing to me with a very bright pickup. But with either the Wilde P-46 or the SD SPB2 pickup for rock and metal it is a good cap choice. If you buy one of the used full electronics setups on eBay I'd just start out with whatever stock cap is in the setup you buy.

Like I said I can't see spending a lot on this thing, but I'd probably put in a Switchcraft jack also as they are only like $2 or $3. But again if the jack is ok and I was looking to get out cheap that would not be a high priority.


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