After Market Pickups

[Ed Friedland]

Barto, EMG, Lane Poor, BassLines, etc. When you get the bug to change your tone, what pickups do it for you? Passive? Active?

 

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www.edfriedland.com

[rumpelstiltskin.]

Originally posted by Ed Friedland:

Barto, EMG, Lane Poor, BassLines, etc. When you get the bug to change your tone, what pickups do it for you? Passive? Active?

 

EMG = evil. that said, i love the sound of my bartolini P replacements, even though i occasionaly play my girlfriend's squier P for another P sound; the bartolinis are not the end all be all of P.

 

i am not so keen on basslines, but their MM/humbucker is quite nice. it sounds great. i also like the sound of the fender J replacements that they put in their vintage reissues and the geddy lee signature -- they're some of the best pickups i've ever heard. ever.

 

in general, i am much more satisfied by the passive sound. active pickups, while yielding a good snap and boingy tone, tend to sound a lot more homogenous to me than passives. i like the control i have over the frequency bands. i think they're wonderfully flexible, but from one model to the next, they don't have as much distinction to me as passives.

 

finally, what about optical pickups or piezos? i've never heard any opticals. how do they sound different from magnetic pickups? are any of you people enamored of opticals or piezos?

[Ed Friedland]

I've tried the Lightwave optical set up on a few basses. This year that was the "must have" for bass manufacturers to show. IMO, they sound great on fretless basses and fingerstyle playing. I don't care for the transient response for slapping, it's a little brittle for my taste. Piezos can be great, it depends on how it's tuned. Sometimes the high frequencies are tuned too low so they accentuate a harshness that you don't want. If they're tuned too high, then you get a lot of string noise. They also need onboard buffering, so the preamp it's matched with has alot to do with it.

A good piezo can add the zing for slapping, or even be used solo for the "unplugged" sound.

 

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www.edfriedland.com

[rumpelstiltskin.]

Originally posted by Ed Friedland:

I've tried the Lightwave optical set up on a few basses. This year that was the "must have" for bass manufacturers to show. IMO, they sound great on fretless basses and fingerstyle playing.

 

what do they sound like? if that's even something that's easy to describe.

 

one thing i've always been dissatisfied with is the dead-string sound i get out of my pickups (i like a really bright, new string sound). of course, when i play them at quiet times without an amp, the acoustic sound of both of my solidbody basses is really amazing and beautiful. piezos are a somewhat obvious choice for that, except that they don't quite translate the acoustic sound of an acoustic guitar.

 

do opticals make the acoustic sound? are they expensive? i play primarily fingerstyle, so i'm looking for more versatility and fresh, new sound.

 

thanks for your expertise. it's really helpful.

[jeremy_dup1]

I recently put a Seymour Duncan vintage pickup in a Fernandes P bass. This pickup is the real deal and the bass now sounds identical to a 68 Precision owned by one of my students.

 

I had a Lane Poor pickup in this bass for a while, it was a wonderful clear sound, but not what I was looking for. I think it would be great in a "modern" bass.

 

Years ago I put Bartolinis into a P-J bass that I built out of parts. They were very warm and smooth sounding, very unlike the "normal" Fender sound.

 

The Mike Lull basses use Lindy Fralin jazz pickups and sound great.

 

I've never been a fan of EMG's. The sound is way too "hi-fi" for me. In other words, they give a very full frequency response and I prefer the regular Fender bark and bite.

 

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http://www.jps.net/jeremy/basspage.html

[CraigLeyhFrameBand.com]

I've always played Fender inst. I put some Barts

in a couple of them and loved them! I wanted to try

EMG's but never did other than in the shop. I have

since purchased a used Carvin LB76 fretless and have

not picked up the fenders since. All the Fenders

were passive but I cannot turn off the active on

the Carvin. I really like the stability of the 6 string

neck thru.

 

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Thank you,

Craig S. Leyh

CraigLeyh@FrameBand.com

[cornbread_medhotmail.com]

I like the sound of Rio Grande pickups, particularly the Muy Grande. They are very thick and fat and hot. They're hand made in Houston. The sound compares to the active pickups on my Fender American Deluxe Jazz. I am going to experiment with an Aguilar on-board preamp to see if that beefs up the sound a little more. Great guitar pickups, as well.

[dude_dup3]

I've tried out most out there trying to find the best pickup to match up with the J-Retro/U-Retro preamps I distribute here in the US which allows you to play the bass in either active or passive mode and I found that I really liked the Lane Poor Jazz Classics but alas Lane has fallen off the earth or something so I've gone back to the drawing board while I secretly horde one last set of LP JC's for a bass that I've been building for quite a while now for Rudy Sarzo.

 

The Fralins that Lull uses are quite nice but are a bit low output in passive mode for my personal taste (I think Lull get's his Fralins specially "underwound" on purpose). The Fralin's in Lakland Joe Osborns seem hotter to me (could be the thicker body's of the Laklands too or just my imagination.). I pop these Fralins into active mode through the J-Retro preamp and they kick major butt yet can be tamed down if preferred.

 

I really have to say that FOR ME (remember I'm a rocker-dude) the best J-Bass replacement pickup I found so far is the DiMarzio Model J DP123's (NOT the Ultra Jazz DP149). The Model J is a side by side split humbucker with the adjustable pole pieces. This is a monster pickup in my opinion especially when used in active mode with the J-Retro.

 

I have a set of Aero Instruments MP-181's that I'll be trying out next and will report back.

 

I've also heard that the Bartolini's all sound great with the J-Retro preamp but I have such a bad taste in my mouth with their lack of response to anyone other than huge builders/retailers that I'll take my business where I can get the common courtesy of a return phone call or email.

[CraigLeyhFrameBand.com]

Hey Dude

Try the Bart east coast guy. I can't think of his name at

the moment, but his number is (716) 425-9730 Fairport,NY. I

have the catalog at home with his name. Email me and i will

send it to you. He was ver helpful and did return calls.

 

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Thank you,

Craig S. Leyh

CraigLeyh@FrameBand.com

[Ed Friedland]

It's funny to see such an EMG backlash. For so long they were the thing. Don't forget, Victor Wooten still uses them and I can't find anything bad about his tone! However, they are rather hi-fi. I just put a set of Dimarzio DP149 Ultra-Jazz pickups in my Mexijazz fretless. I'm taking it out tonight, but my first reaction at home is VERY positive. The side by side humbucker makes the most sense to me, I had a Duncan Hot Stack J in the bridge before, but it was a little too "compressed" sounding. Not "open" like a single coil. These DM's could be the answer for this bass. Being fretless, I can't really judge the slap tone on them, but they sound greatfor fingerstyle. I was hesitant to try them, I have a bad image of DiMarzio from the 70's Metal scene with big hair guys wielding their BC Rich axes getting a rude, honky, cutting tone. Ooops, sorry Dude!!! http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif

 

These new pickups remove that stigma for me!

 

As far as the optical pickups go, yes, they are expensive, I don't remember how much, but they added considerably to the sticker price of any bass they were on. How did they sound? Well, let me get my thesaurus here and look for some cool adjectives.......

 

Well, maybe I'm not the best person to describe this, but I liked it. It has a fast response time (the speed of light...) so the attack is different. If you roll off the highs, it can be very warm, the highs were good for fingerstyle. I played it on some fretless basses and thought it was well suited to that. Sorry if it's a vague description, NAMM is not the best place to make critical judgements about how things sound, it's noisy and you can't concentrate. Plus it was 6 weeks ago. Anyone else have a better sense of this system?

[Ben]

After 30 years of using the same '69 Precision I just put it into well-earned retirement. I bought a used Fernandes Gravity 4 and replaced the strange twangy FGI actives with an EMG P-J set.

 

They may be "hi fi" but that's OK with me, they give me every kind of sound I want, including a P sound if you turn the bridge pickup off and the tone dark. IMHO, if you start with a clean tone you can do pretty much anything you want with it, but if you start with a "character" tone, your options are much more limited.

 

The people I play with have all commented how they can hear me much better, they like the newer clean tone, and the deep stuff is still there, too, keeping me happy.

 

PS. Be sure to use two batteries for 18v with EMGs if you can find any way at all to fit the batteries in.

 

This message has been edited by Ben on 04-19-2001 at 08:30 AM

[rumpelstiltskin.]

Originally posted by Dude:

I really have to say that FOR ME (remember I'm a rocker-dude)...

 

dude, do you have a mullet?

[virtual.rayprodigy.net]

I happen to really like EMG pickups.They are not the only ones I like,but I do appreciate what can be done with them.I think that what turns some folks off to them is that they generally have a wider frequency response than most other pickups,and this can be a little disconcerting at first.But my feeling is that if too much is there you can always take some away (with EQ) but you can't amplify what the source isn;t even capturing in the first place.

[BenLoy]

Anybody out there heard anything about Joe Barden's Jazz Bass pickups? He's been the king of drop-in fender guitar replacement for years...but I've never heard anything about bass pickups until I saw a listing under his name in the Guitar & Bass Buyer's guide. Considering so many guitar players love the great single coil sound his pickups, i'm intrigued to find out if any bassists have tried out these Jazz Bass pickups or even know if he's actually built any...

[Curve Dominant]

>>I've never been a fan of EMG's. The sound is way too "hi-fi" for me. In other words, they give a very full frequency response and I prefer the regular Fender bark and bite.<<

 

Ya know, this perfectly sums up the problem I'm having with my Ibanez SDGR 505. It feels great, it plays great, it sounds good unplugged (the planets were in perfect alignment at Hoschino the day it was built). But once I plug it in, AAARRGGHHH!!! It's got that "hi-fi" sound that Jeremy described, and I hate it. I wonder - could I put new humbuckers in it that would resemble that Fender bark and bite?

 

Thanks!

curvedominant

[xtian_dup1]

With all the bad press about Bartolini and how hard they are to work with, I have to say that two of my basses have Barts in them. I put the P-style replacements into my fretless Yamaha RBX260f (fretless with roundwounds), and I love the tone I get in one specific position. There is not a lot of flexibility (mostly because of my resistor choices when I installed it), but the tone it gets is perfect for this bass.

 

My Conklin 7-string has Barts in it from the facotry, and the range of tones out of it is just astounding. I love this bass. (But you probably know that already!)

 

But when I am going in the studio to record, I use the Rickenbacker. I dunno what it is about this bass, but it does not sound like Chris Squire. It has a much warmer old Geddy Lee kind of sound to it. And when I slap it, it has some inherent chorus sound in it. I just love it.

 

I am really curious about the Fralins, and the J-Retro preamp. I may do some mods to my fretless Jazz soon.... !

 

- Christian

Budapest, Hungary

[Ed Friedland]

Christian,

I've already posted on this, but I say go for the J-Retro! It's the best investment you can make for your Jazz. My Jazz always sounded good, with the stock pickups and a Barto TBT preamp. But now, it's a whole new level of greatness. I can't say enough good things about it. Thanks to Dude for convincing me to get it!

 

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www.edfriedland.com

[DC]

It's wild how many people don't care for EMG actives. I've got a P-J set in my bass (mid 80's Schecter, remember back when they were made in Texas instead of Korea like now days?). They record just great. I didn't like em sitting in a room with an amp, but then listening back to recordings (studio and live) convinced me. I've ended up with them in almost all my instruments.

 

I installed some Bartolini's in a friends bass and wired them to have the 'piano wire' tone when boosting the midrange. Wow, they sounded really big and cool twangy I must say.

 

Dimarzio's and even a lot of Duncans have this low mid emphassis that I hate (altho it's been several years since I've checked em). Just muds up a mix. I prefer stock Fenders to most of those.

 

Another bass pick up that I love is those blade pickups that came in Gibson G-3s. They were made by Lawrence I believe. The guitar blades sound brittle and awful, but the bass blades are great. They just sit perfectly in a recorded mix.

 

I expect I like hi-fi over bark tho...

 

davecharles@musician.net

[kurosawa]

Here are the 5 things I absolutely love about EMGs:

 

1. No grounding of bridge to circuitry. 100% shock-proof.

 

2. With passive pickups, one winding is too bright for some bassists, and one winding is too dark. With EMGs, everything comes through. This is a tremendous practice aid.

 

3. Very low magnetic pull on the strings. You can run the pickups right up to the string, in fact, the factory encourages this. No warbling, and running closer means better s/n.

 

4. They're hot and quiet. Very strong signal due to the onboard preamps (the P has two, one for each section). Given that they're eerily quiet anyway, they must have the best s/n of any pickup out there. The P is wired parallel for double the bass of a passive.

 

5. They sip at batteries. Even if you run two 9v batteries in series for 18v to increase headroom (highly recommended), you'll still use fewer batteries than other active systems.

 

Players who are willing to work up new EQ settings and practice are more likely to love changing over to EMGs.

[Bill Bolton]

> 1. No grounding of bridge to circuitry. 100% shock-proof.

 

That sort of wooly thinking is likely to get you killed one day. There are still plenty of exposed grounds on most basses.

 

> 2. With passive pickups, one winding is too bright for some bassists,

> and one winding is too dark. With EMGs, everything comes through. This

> is a tremendous practice aid.

 

Huh?

 

> 4. They're hot and quiet. Very strong signal due to the onboard preamps

> (the P has two, one for each section). Given that they're eerily quiet

> anyway, they must have the best s/n of any pickup out there.

 

There are other pickups with on board pre-amps and there are other low noise pickup with no electronics at all. No even EMG claims anything like their pickups having "the best s/n of any pickup out there."

 

> 5. They sip at batteries.

 

As do just about all contemporary active systems.

 

> Even if you run two 9v batteries in series for 18v to increase headroom

> (highly recommended), you'll still use fewer batteries than other active

> systems.

 

A 9V supply is quite adequate to provide all the voltage swing that well designed electronics need in a bass. For some reason EMGs need 18V to provide the same sort of headroom that other active systems are able to provide from a single 9V battery.

 

Choosing EMGs for their sound is one thing but choosing them for non-existant advantages is crazy.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

This message has been edited by Bill Bolton on 04-20-2001 at 10:23 AM

[Ben]

18 volt vs. 9 volt

 

Many common op-amps are spec'ed at +/-15 volts and +/- 5 volts. In other words, for a range of power supplies between 10 and 30 volts if you are using batteries. If you read the spec sheets, they are always better at the higher voltage. And if you use 9 volts, you are starting outside (below) the optimum range for op-amp operation. Some op-amps tolerate low voltage operation better than others, but it limits the choices and starts out with a sub-optimal design.

 

There is no downside to using 18 volts that I can see, since you at least start out in the 10 to 30 volt normal operating range.

 

My general impression from reading reviews in Bass Player is that 18 volt systems are generally preferable to 9 volt systems, especially inexpensive 9 volt systems. For example, check out the review of the Peavey G on the "Four String Shootout" under the "Gear" tab at www.bassplayer.com

 

 

 

This message has been edited by Ben on 04-21-2001 at 03:22 PM

[Bill Bolton]

> Many common op-amps are spec'ed at 15volts and 5volts. If you read the

> spec sheets, they are always better at the higher voltage.

 

The question is better for what? For the signal levels found in active basses, a 9V supply is much higher than required, but is the only convenient voltage in a readily available battery.

 

> There is no downside to using 18 volts that I can see

 

Finding space for 2 x 9V batteries can be significant downside if the bass doesn't have suitable battery compartments.

 

> My general impression from reading reviews in Bass Player is that 18

> volt systems are generally preferable to 9 volt systems

 

There are very few 18V systems so you'll find the BP review comments are mostly about EMG 18V systems, which is correct in that an 18V supply does sound better with EMGs... it just not correct for the small number of other 18V systems, which have mostly provided 18V capability to "spec match" EMG, not because they needed to.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

This message has been edited by Bill Bolton on 04-23-2001 at 12:45 AM

[Ed Friedland]

Personally, I prefer 9V just because of the hassle of dealing with 2 batteries. It's all I can do to remember to have ONE spare 9V on hand. The new Carvin P-Series has 2 batteries, but one is for the magnetic pickups, the other is specifically for the Piezo Buffer, so if one goes dead, you could still use the live battery to preamp the magnetic pickups.

 

I had a Modulus with an 18V set up and converted it to 9, ditto with my Aguilar OBP. I can't say I've lost anything sound-wise.

 

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www.edfriedland.com

[Ben]

Interesting how different people are concerned about different things to improve their sound.

 

I have built or rebuilt a number of electronic projects over the years, and subscribe to the belief that it is the active components of electronics (i.e. the opamps, transistors, tubes) that make the most difference in a given piece of equipment. Capacitors in the signal path come next, and everything else (i.e. other capacitors, resistors, wire) are a couple of orders of magnitude less important. Nelson Pass, a well-known audio amp designer says this pretty well: A lot of people are really concerned about capacitors, almost as many as worry about wire. Capacitor distortion is small compared to the sins committed by output transformers and the gain devices (tubes or semiconductor), but occupies a disproportionate share of audiophile angst. (See www.passlabs.com for more from Nelson Pass)

 

This winter I built some headphone amplifiers (see www.headwize.com for everything you ever wanted to know about headphones). With a good audio source and good headphones, you can really hear the difference between various components and designs. Among other things, one result is that I have become more aware of how opamps work, and the large differences in sound between different opamp designs. As a result I have become a bit of an opamp nerd. For example, I replaced the four TL072 bi-fet opamps (an old standby workhorse) in my Eden Nemesis with TLE2072s (the current best upgrade for the 072).

 

So, as you might expect, I am fussy about opamp power supplies, too, and try and feed them as best I can. I dont know what opamps EMG uses in their pickups, but when they suggest using 18 volts I understand why that should improve performance and personally will go for it. Whether it actually does or not is, I guess, an open question. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

Ed, I just buy my 9 volt batteries in a two-pack and think of it as one unit.

 

Bill, its pretty clear you dont like EMG much, which is OK, but I for one would be more interested in hearing about what sort of active pickups/preamps you do like.

[Ed Friedland]

Ben,

Never met a self-professed "op-amp nerd" before! Well, I would guess the difference between 18 and 9 Volts would make a difference if a circuit was designed that way. But the Aguilar OBP seems to run fine on 9, I checked with them to make sure it was okay to run it that way and they said it would be fine.

 

What about the possibility of bass electronics running on those small lithium cells, are they enough power?

 

 

 

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www.edfriedland.com

[Ben]

Well, maybe "nerd" is too strong a term. Is "geek" any better? Anyway, it's something I have fun with.

 

Hmm. Batteries, huh?

 

There is good information on batteries at http://data.energizer.com/ . It looks to me that there is about twice the energy in lithium batteries as in alkaline batteries of the same size. The common 9 volt alkaline battery has a life of about 600 milliamp-hours. 9 volt lithium cells have just about twice that. The cost of 9 volt lithium cells is high, I think Radio Shack sells them for about $10 each. So you would get twice the life at about five times the cost.

 

If you want to use the cylindrical batteries that point-and-shoot cameras use, or the button cells, you need three of each to get to nine volts. The largest size of button cells are also about 600 milliamp-hours, but they are an inch in diameter and 1/4" thick, so a stack of three of them would match an alkaline 9 volt battery, but take up almost as much room and cost over $20.

 

Lithium batteries do have two things going for them: a very long shelf life of about 10 years; and a good discharge-curve. As alkaline batteries get used up, the voltage decreases in a pretty steady fashion. As lithium batteries get used up, they keep their voltage quite high until they are almost dead and then fade quickly.

 

But no magic bullet. If there were, I would bet that some of the fancy custom bass builders would be using them.

 

Also, according to the datasheets for the standard and "new, improved" 9 volt batteries (Energizer calls them "e2" and Duracell "ultra"), there is no additional capacity in the fancier ones and no point in spending the extra $$ for them.

 

 

 

This message has been edited by Ben on 04-25-2001 at 09:54 AM

[Ed Friedland]

<>

 

Really? So we've been hoodwinked again by the evil empire?

 

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www.edfriedland.com

[Bill Bolton]

> Really? So we've been hoodwinked again by the evil empire?

 

In fact for most bass applications, where current drain is minimal, you can save several dimes by buying "Eveready Gold" 522 Alkaline batteries instead of "Energisers". At very low currents the effective capacity of the cell is the same as A522 "Energisers" and X22 "E2" batteries.

 

If you prudently replace batetries on a periodic basis instead of waiting until they go "flat" in service, then those dimes start to add up! The higher performance types are worthwhile where there is some significant power drain involved (i.e radios etc).

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Ed Friedland]

I remember reading an interview years ago with Eric Johnson's guitar tech about how Eric insisted on Duracell Alkalines because he could hear the difference. I always thought that was a crock, but hey you know how SENSITIVE guitar players are!

 

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www.edfriedland.com

[good morning]

Ben's comments about circuitry, etc. got me wondering...

 

Choice of mic pres makes a big difference in the signal chain. So if you have an active bass, might there be a better chance of getting the sound you want by changing the onboard preamp rather than the pickups?

 

Anybody know of any magazine reviews about that, or try it yet?