The Last Bass Outpost
Main Forums => The Bass Zone => Topic started by: daan on July 31, 2013, 06:58:31 PM
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I have a Hondo Jazz copy, it has some "issues" :rolleyes: one of them being the pickups. They fell apart, I had them rewired (the pickup guy said he was able to just re-asemble them instead of actually rewinding them) which was fine, except 2 of the 3 wires coming out of the pups don't actually have WIRE inside the plastic insulation... and I tried taking one apart to see if I could fix it myself. So anyway, I already have a fake P/J style bass that I like the sound of, so I don't just want to put Fender-style pups in this bass (not that they'd fit, it's routed for humbucker-shaped pups now) and also I love the sound of the P-90 pups in the guitar I have. Has anyone here put a P90 in a bass? What would that sound like, does anybody have any experience with that?
An older guitar I used to have, got a set of Gretsch Electromatic pups put into it that I suspect were just guitar "mini humbuckers" with no visible pole pieces, and that sounded great. And the stock pups are close enough in size that I could cut new pup rings to size for minis easier than plugging and re-routing the wood.
So how about it?
Oh yeah, posts about 70's rock, model trains, WWII aircraft and stuff like that are welcome in here too. ;D
And, I heard that wearing fish nets while playing increases your "tone" by 73%. Is that still true if you have your OEM leg hair still? :mrgreen:
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There's no difference between a guitar pickup and a bass pickup in my book. In general standard bass pickups tend to have a little more output even with the same number of winds since they're usually a little larger physically but that's irrelevant to me.
Besides the examples I could give (Rick toasters, Rick 4004/650 humbucker, original Fender Musicmaster) what it all boils down to is how it sounds. It either sounds good to you in the bass or it won't. In any case it won't sound like it does in a guitar for the simple reason that it's covering a different clef and scale length.
Go for it.
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The Squier Bronco and the Fender Musicmaster bass both used guitar pickups. Plenty of both are/were sold and enjoyed as basses.
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Also Duesenberg (6-polo humbuckers), Danelectro, Gibson with the 335-bass... All guitar humbuckers. I guess a P90 will sound a bit P-ish?
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I'm not taking the P90's (I think) out of my SG... Al banned me from meddling... ;D
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I recently put guitar pickups in one of my basses, though not P-90s; Epiphone Goth Les Paul. Not much bite, but a good classic rock sound, from nasally to mud. I suppose it might have more treble if the strings weren't 6 year old half-rounds. I put in a series/parallel switch, fattens up the bottom. Was going to trade it in, not so sure now. It's pretty fun.
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I'm not taking the P90's (I think) out of my SG... Al banned me from meddling... ;D
I was going to comment, but then i saw a squirrel....
What was the question? ;)
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Has anyone here put a P90 in a bass? What would that sound like, does anybody have any experience with that?
Old mosrite bass single coil pickups were built like guitar P-90s. Also Dark Star pickups construction is a bit P-90ish (if we throw away that bulky pole elevating mechanism ofcourse).
I think you will have some good results if you choose pickups with lower dc resistance, vintage or whatever they are called. Stay away from overwound pickups, except if you are going for a particular (muddy) sound.
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.... Stay away from overwound pickups, except if you are going for a particular (muddy) sound.
IMHO that's sound advice for any situation, bass or guitar. Exactly what happens depends on the design, coil shape and size, etc. But clarity usually suffers with an overwound pickup.
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What was the question? ;)
The answer to the question is ... forty two ...
The problem was the way you posed the... squirrel...? did you say squirrel...?
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The Music Zoo sells the chrome, guitar-sized Gibson TB+ on ebay for $55 each. I've purchased two of them and have been very satisfied.
http://bassoutpost.com/index.php?topic=8141.0
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Much like crossdressing, it sometimes works and it sometimes doesn't. Trying is believing.
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OK so now that 2 of my girls are in school again, and the other one actually napped (YAY FREE TIME) I could futz with this again. I had gone to the guitar store to find a used P90 (since I don't wanna spend more on a "test" pup than I spent on the entire guitar) They had a GFS humbucker sized P90 that I bought. When I told the guy what I was doing with it, he told me they had an old violin-shaped thing that was too far gone to save, and sold me the pickups off of that for $7. Can't beat that, he even checked 'em out with his tester before I bought them so I knew they worked. I got the 90 into the neck (middle?) space(It didn't fit into the bridge route, and I didn't want to enlarge it), messed with the wiring aaaaaand...
All I got was a tiny bit of noise if I pulled up on the pot and kind of shook it. I tried changing all the wires around and got nothing. I think I have to see if I jarred something loose on my control plate or something. And I realize my plate and the original guardplate don't line up. I do have a chunk of guard plate material, and my mother-in-law has a band saw she'll let me use, if I get a new blade for it. I could try to make a new guardplate since this project is already spiraling out of control (or just circling the drain, ha ha)
(http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/dannew2008/h2/null_zpseebcb8a7.jpg) (http://s427.photobucket.com/user/dannew2008/media/h2/null_zpseebcb8a7.jpg.html)
I did put the violin bass pups in, they were exactly the same size as what I already have. Except they work... I did get the bridge pup to work, that made plenty of sound with the "tap on the polepiece" test. The neck one, not so much.
(http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/dannew2008/h2/null_zps1410c5d9.jpg) (http://s427.photobucket.com/user/dannew2008/media/h2/null_zps1410c5d9.jpg.html)
(http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/dannew2008/h2/null_zps39030c59.jpg) (http://s427.photobucket.com/user/dannew2008/media/h2/null_zps39030c59.jpg.html)
I really wanna know what my fake 90 will sound like, so I'll play with the wiring some more and get back to you. Hopefully before Christmas...
Playing this reminded me how much I like this bass, even though I spent more time now filling dents and drilling holes into it rather than actually PLAYING it.
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A mother-in-law with a band saw! As Martha Stewart would say, that's a good thing.
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Send it to Carlo and have him put some Thunderbuckers in it ;D
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(http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/dannew2008/h2/null_zps1410c5d9.jpg)[/URL]
That pickup sure looks like the typical Japanese "staple" pickups in my 70's Univox bass.
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Send it to Carlo and have him put some Thunderbuckers in it ;D
Well yeah that would be what I really want to do but each pup (never mind shipping and labor) is more than the whole bass cost...
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OK more stupid questions:
If I wire the pickup straight to the output jack, I can get sound. If I try to wire it to anything on the control plate, nuthin'. How much does the control stuff change the sound, anyway (aside from the obvious way of course!) I mean, straight thru VS everything turned up to 10 should be about the same, right?
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The resistance of the volume and tone controls is a load on the pickup and will affect the treble slightly even when turned all the way up. Little or no apparent volume drop. That's nothing like what you're describing.
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Well god only knows what my control plate actually came off of, it was a used take-off sold to me as a Squier part, but it was all of $20 so any one of the components on there could be bad. I just couldn't afford to buy all the parts separately if I got good ones. Next I'll try re-wiring what I have. Or maybe I should head over to Rondo.com and get something that actually plays...
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OK more stupid questions:
If I wire the pickup straight to the output jack, I can get sound. If I try to wire it to anything on the control plate, nuthin'. How much does the control stuff change the sound, anyway (aside from the obvious way of course!) I mean, straight thru VS everything turned up to 10 should be about the same, right?
You've got one of two things going on: either the plate is not grounded to the circuit or something in the control scheme is shorting the signal straight to ground.
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OK so since I posted in here last, I got laid off, got a new job, had another kid, and had a flood in my basement work area... not good for finishing projects, huh? ANywyay I FINALLY am back on my feet, and enough of my kids are in school so I have time to work on my stuff once in a while. So when I left off, I wasn't getting any sound out of my pups. After a LOT of messing around, I discovered that one of the pots in my control plate was broken internally (the shaft spun 360* without doing anything-shoulda checked that better, huh?) One of the replacement pups didn't work at all, and both of the ones I had rewound also didn't work.
(http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/dannew2008/h2/6448DE61-41D0-4D2D-9B28-286EE458EE8F_zpsuatfk6qz.jpg) (http://s427.photobucket.com/user/dannew2008/media/h2/6448DE61-41D0-4D2D-9B28-286EE458EE8F_zpsuatfk6qz.jpg.html)
I used to have a Hofner 500/4, that had the pickups from an early '00's Gretsch Jet bass in it. I really liked the way it sounded, and after a bit of research found out those may (or may not) have been "Artec" guitar mini humbuckers ("Firebird" style minis with no polepieces thru the cover, which are basically regular minis with a solid cover) So I looked around for a set of those. Somebody on Ebay was selling some, I got a ceramic one for $10 and an Alnico one for $12. And with the track record I've had so far, I took them to an electrician buddy who tested them with his multi-meter and they both work. (The "staple" looking ones, one registered at 6.5K and the other one was infinity.)
(http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/dannew2008/h2/442F534B-6206-4928-BF0E-6A5098577B58_zpsgexovz1b.jpg) (http://s427.photobucket.com/user/dannew2008/media/h2/442F534B-6206-4928-BF0E-6A5098577B58_zpsgexovz1b.jpg.html)
I bought 3 new pots and a capacitor and just replaced everything that came with my control plate. If I realized how (comparatively) cheap these components were, I'd have just done that to begin with rather than tear the bass all apart, I'd have been able to play it for about 2 years now, instead of having it spread out all over my basement...
Now I need to replace the guardplate my bass came with because the new pups are 1/8th" or so narrower than the staples, and the plate doesn't work with the new control plate anyway. Plus it's real thin plastic (it looks like they were supposed to be B/W/B and they "forgot" to laminate all 3 layers on it) It has lots of extra holes in it from thumb rests or something, too so I don't mind making a new one. I got a new blade for my M-I-L's bandsaw, and she's gonna be at her winter home all winter so I have the basement to myself this winter.
(http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/dannew2008/h2/9AEC3ACB-A4DB-4CE4-ABF3-8BF31F49A113_zpswu5qjqav.jpg) (http://s427.photobucket.com/user/dannew2008/media/h2/9AEC3ACB-A4DB-4CE4-ABF3-8BF31F49A113_zpswu5qjqav.jpg.html)
I got some construction paper to try and make a pattern for the new guard. I did cheat and buy an actual Jazz bass guard, but it didn't come close to being the right shape...
(http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/dannew2008/h2/2012-05-28003614.jpg) (http://s427.photobucket.com/user/dannew2008/media/h2/2012-05-28003614.jpg.html)
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Sorry to hear about your misfortunes, sounds like you have things under control now. Congratulations on the new child.
As for the pickups, doesn't matter whether or not they're Artecs as long as they work and you like the sound.
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So now that I'm messing about with the soldering iron, I see that one of the pups I have is 4-wire hookup. Would it be worth wiring up a coil split/tap in there, even just to see how it sounds? (I did this before, in a guitar so I have a little experience, just enough to be dangerous!) And, since only one is this way, would bridge or middle (or is it neck? The one closer to the fret board anyway) would one or the other make a difference?
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Test meter time...
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Unless you were already familiar with the pickups' characteristics in that bass, I don't think you'll be able to guess in advance which might make more difference, or if the difference would be worth doing.
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Uwe may know this answer.....
Did Gibson use the exact same pickups in both the guitar and the bass versions of the Les Paul Signature models?
Mine both looked exactly the same.
I've asked this on the Gibson Forum but never got an answer.
I've used old 80s OBL blade style humbuckers in both guitars and basses. They sound great in either.
Usually the only real factor preventing cross-using pickups from guitar to bass is the number of poles. Although the magnetic field may still cover output on really strong pickups to mini,Alize dropouts....it is usually better to use PUPs without pole pieces.
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Well, here we go, the guard (and the pup surround) is done. Now just to wire it up!
(http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/dannew2008/h2/54A28A87-18F5-4CEE-9EAF-C43FFEBD5D78_zps4kxv1hwq.jpg) (http://s427.photobucket.com/user/dannew2008/media/h2/54A28A87-18F5-4CEE-9EAF-C43FFEBD5D78_zps4kxv1hwq.jpg.html)
THe pup surround is bigger than the original, mostly so the route underneath doesn't show.
(http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/dannew2008/h2/ABA8C5A1-53E9-4274-BFE8-EADE4E2139D3_zpsgqveomsy.jpg) (http://s427.photobucket.com/user/dannew2008/media/h2/ABA8C5A1-53E9-4274-BFE8-EADE4E2139D3_zpsgqveomsy.jpg.html)
I'm starting to think the route isn't exactly where it should be, if I center the pup under the strings the route still sticks out a little.
(http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/dannew2008/h2/2012-04-17145931.jpg) (http://s427.photobucket.com/user/dannew2008/media/h2/2012-04-17145931.jpg.html)
(http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/dannew2008/h2/2012-04-17151001.jpg) (http://s427.photobucket.com/user/dannew2008/media/h2/2012-04-17151001.jpg.html)
But it is a "budget" guitar from the 70's, so I'm not real suprised. I'm starting to get excited, I haven't been able to play this thing for a year (or 2...)
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Is it possible that the bridge is not quite in the right place ?
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Is it possible that the bridge is not quite in the right place ?
With my skill level, that's ALWAYS a valid question! :-[ :mrgreen:
Well apparently I deleted all my pictures, so 2 things: DON"T let me work on your basses, and step away from the keyboard!
I measured about 14 times, and temporarily attatched the bridge and checked it with strings, so I'm PRETTY sure it's in the right spot... but this is me we're talking about here, so I could be wrong.