New from Fender Custom Shop

[Dave W]

Postmodern Bass available in NOS or "Journeyman Relic" in the $2900 to $3250 price range.

Essentially it's a Precison with a Jazz neck and a combination of old and new features -- e.g., vintage radius and modern medium jumbo frets. Does that make it postmodern? 

Just think, instead of putting together a frankenbass, you can have Fender Custom Shop do it for you for a mere three grand.

[Pilgrim]

No matching headstock.  Piffle!!

[Highlander]

Amazing what you can come up with in one of those Devil-makes-work-for-idle-hands moments...

[Lightyear]

But Dave!  It comes with a "stealth" A string retainer!!  Because one is suddenly needed 60 years after the fact 

[Dave W]

But Dave!  It comes with a "stealth" A string retainer!!  Because one is suddenly needed 60 years after the fact 

Let's not forget the "seismic" pickup. Apparently it's the first P pickup to register on the Richter Scale.

The regular custom shop models do seem to sell, though. $3K is ridiculous to me but compared to some of those $8K range one-offs, this one's a downright bargain! 

[Highlander]

Then I presume it will require the sub woofer to trigger the efect... and comes with tags "not to be used in California"...

[Dave W]

Every pickup has limitations due to its form. I doubt any P pickup can be "seismic" if they mean thundering fundamental. It's just marketing BS. Overwind a P pickup -- like a Seymour Duncan Hot For P -- and you get a thick midrange. Leave the windings alone and use larger magnets -- like the Duncan Quarter Pounder -- and you do get more fundamental at the expense of mids.

[eb2]

We used to call them "Berklee Hybrids." That was all the rage in the late 70's - yank a Jazz neck and bolt it to a P bass body.  The Jazz-bo kids thought the Jazz bass body and pups were shit.  The thin neck on the superior P body and pup was the way to go. In Boston every music shop had one of those show up every month.  The P necks and Jazz bodies got junked.

[slinkp]

Every pickup has limitations due to its form. I doubt any P pickup can be "seismic" if they mean thundering fundamental. It's just marketing BS. Overwind a P pickup -- like a Seymour Duncan Hot For P -- and you get a thick midrange. Leave the windings alone and use larger magnets -- like the Duncan Quarter Pounder -- and you do get more fundamental at the expense of mids.

What about something like the Alembic activators?  I'm not sure how those are wound nor what the magnets are like, but i think it's a low impedance wide response design.  I dragged mine out recently after playing mostly either Gibson TB plus or Greco thunderbird clone for the past couple years. I missed the thick midbass and strong mids on those, but was really struck by the increased fundamental on the low E that I got from the Activator P pup.  I had to EQ the lows down quite a bit on the amp to keep it from overwhelming the band's sound.   I guess I haven't played that bass since I stopped using a cab that had no deep lows. Kaboom!

[Dave W]

What about something like the Alembic activators?  I'm not sure how those are wound nor what the magnets are like, but i think it's a low impedance wide response design.  I dragged mine out recently after playing mostly either Gibson TB plus or Greco thunderbird clone for the past couple years. I missed the thick midbass and strong mids on those, but was really struck by the increased fundamental on the low E that I got from the Activator P pup.  I had to EQ the lows down quite a bit on the amp to keep it from overwhelming the band's sound.   I guess I haven't played that bass since I stopped using a cab that had no deep lows. Kaboom!

I was talking about passive pickups in a passive setup. Not sure about the Activators, I got the impression they were underwound but not actually low impedance, and that they have a filter system as well as a preamp.

[slinkp]

I've no idea of the impedance, true.  And yes there is a filter... the tone control is more akin to a moog-style resonant lowpass filter than a typical passive lowpass.
So turning the knob adjusts the resonant frequency;  there's a clearly  audible peak at the resonant freq; a fairly steep rolloff above resonant freq; and fairly flat below that. There are useful tones at many positions of the knob, all with ample lows.