Musicmaster, Mustang Pickups

[copacetic]

On the subject of Musicmasters brought up in another thread several weeks ago it revived my interest and I am wondering something:  Has anyone had ever tried putting a Musicmaster (or a Mustang) pickup in a P-bass?  I do have a '67 Mustang bass and I ultimatly chose it over 3 of my P basses (a '66,'71 & '73) some years ago and sold them in fact. As mentioned in that "I just bought a Musicmaster" thread  the response over the neck is totally even (which is also the case with the Mustang) and somehow the Mustang pickup just really had it all (for what I wanted in a Fender solidbody). Now there is the issue of longer scale: do ya think a Mustang pickup or Musicmaster would handle the larger string spread inserting it in the same p-bass pickup location?

[Dave W]

The Musicmaster pickup's pole spacing from outer pole to outer pole is almost as wide as a '51-style single coil P. That doesn't necessarily mean it will work as well, since the strings falling between the polepieces won't be at the same places as the narrower spaced Musicmaster. Might be worth a try. Even so, a long scale bass is never going to sound like a Musicmaster.

I don't know about the Mustang pickup's polepiece spacing, but it was specifically designed for the narrower string spacing, so I wouldn't be inclined to try it.

[Chris P.]

Maybe you can push the two parts of the mustang split to the sides a bit to create a bit more space between the A and D string.

The Musicmaster just used a six polepieced Strat pick up. If you buy a Duesenberg you get a six pole humbucker too.. I know lots of guys experimented with other Strat pick ups (humbuckers, stacked humbuckers, hot, vintage, ...) in Musicmasters. So I don't think that pick up is that good.

I think the sound of those basses also have to do with small and light bodies and relatively short necks. Maybe even more than the pick ups.

So my conclusion:

Musicmaster pick up: Not that good.
Mustang pick up: Good, but also because the rest of the bass, so maybe not better than a vintage P pick up.

[ilan]

I think Dave is right, the wider string spacing could be a problem with a Mustang bass pickup.

Personally I prefer the Musicmaster pickup over the Mustang for sound. But YMMV.

I have a spare SD Hot Rails pickup that I'm going to try in one of my Musicmasters, just to see if I like the sound.

[Dave W]

I much prefer the Musicmaster pickup to the Mustang.

As Ilan pointed out in another thread, the Musicmaster pickup is the same as a Musicmaster guitar pickup. It might be the same bobbin as a Strat but the polepieces are different.

True, there are a lot of Musicmasters with replaced pickups. More so than Ps and Js? I don't know. And I don't know if the pickup is the only reason I like the Musicmaster better than the Mustang, the different bridge may be part of it.