a full range mudbucker (sort of)

[sniper]

a bisonic in a Muddy cover

[gweimer]

Jason Lollar made me a custom pickup under a mudbucker cover that was about 3/4 size.

[Dave W]

Not a fan of the Bisonic. Not a fan of any so-called full range pickup.

One thing's for sure, nobody with normal hearing would ever mistake it for a real Gibson mudbucker.

[patman]

What is a "full range pickup"...as compared to a Fender or Ric sound?...

I know a mudbucker has a limited range...

[Basvarken]

If it's a BiSonic-ish pickup I guess the whole DarkStar fanclub will be excited...

[Dave W]

What is a "full range pickup"...as compared to a Fender or Ric sound?...

I know a mudbucker has a limited range...

One that has a relatively wide and flat response. IMHO the wider and flatter the response, the less character it has. Same mistake as the so-called hi-fi speaker cabs.

[uwe]

Not that I subscribe to it, but the school of thought behind it seems to be that the more neutral the pup is the more you hear the true sound of the bass. Glockenklang have forged a niche with that concept.

[patman]

to me a pickup is good if I get a good sound without having to fool around with eq'ing the bass too much...i.e. most "good" basses (IMO) are pretty much plug and play. I'm a simple man.

[Dave W]

Not that I subscribe to it, but the school of thought behind it seems to be that the more neutral the pup is the more you hear the true sound of the bass. Glockenklang have forged a niche with that concept.

That is the school of thought. And IMHO it's dead wrong. Unless it's a true acoustic instrument, the pickup is an essential part of the instrument's sound. It doesn't have a "true sound" without it; the pickup's designed to be part of the sound. Likewise with the amp and cab; the guitar world accepted years ago that your amp and cab are part of your sound, not something to make your guitar louder without coloration. Unfortunately not everyone in the bass world gets this.

People have either forgotten or never knew that "hi-fi"  is short for high fidelity and it means playback equipment with the ability to faithfully reproduce the original recording. It means that your stereo can reproduce whatever variations in frequency response, dynamic range and volume that the original has. It doesn't mean that the original sound should be flat. Think about how utterly shitty your favorite music would sound that way. You make music to sound good, not to sound flat and uncolored.

And that's why every full range pickup sounds sterile to me, and the worst sounding high end bass cabs I've ever heard are the ones you hear described as hi-fi.

[eb2]

It is a fun navel-gazing preoccupation for a group of people who are never happy.  Guys who go for full range / sonically innert pups are always in search of the next waste of time.  Truth be told it is an area with a tad more legitamacy than cable made with oxygenated copper, or "bell" brass hardware, etc.

The pup is part of the whole thing.  A mudbucker offers a vibe that people have been conditioned to react poorly to over the past 30 years, but I think of them as full balls pickups.  Its all subjective.  I found DiMarzio P pups to be grating at best, and they sold boatloads of them.  I don't hate Model Ones, but why did people bother with them in the first place?  You can't make an EB-0 sound like a Jazz bass.  I like Guild bass pups, but I don't think I would want an EB-2 to sound like a Starfire, or to play like one.  They look alike, and that is cool enough.  They are different, but one isn't better.  I am glad there are drop in replacements, as always.  Routing up an old bass is avoidable.

[clankenstein]

that curtis novak pickup has f spaced polepieces,the screws are decorative.

[gearHed289]

the guitar world accepted years ago that your amp and cab are part of your sound, not something to make your guitar louder without coloration. Unfortunately not everyone in the bass world gets this.

Yeah, and that's a shame. The convenience of plugging into a DI led us down that road. I will admit that it helps to have one less live mic on stage, but the sound coming out of a DI is nothing like the sound coming out of my SVT.

As far as pickups go - I learned a while ago, when I transitioned from EMG systems to passive pickups through an outboard Sadowsky pre how important MIDS are to a basses personality. The more you boost the bass and treble, the more every bass starts to sound the same, because you're killing the mids. I still want my Ric to sound like a Ric, and my Paul to sound like a T-bird  . Just "enhanced" some. It's actually the "DI mentality" that has me using the Sadowsky in the first place. I can at least do a little pre-shape of my own before the FOH guy gets my signal.

Hi-Fi - not for me! I never use tweeters in a bass cab.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

That is the school of thought. And IMHO it's dead wrong. Unless it's a true acoustic instrument, the pickup is an essential part of the instrument's sound. It doesn't have a "true sound" without it; the pickup's designed to be part of the sound. Likewise with the amp and cab; the guitar world accepted years ago that your amp and cab are part of your sound, not something to make your guitar louder without coloration. Unfortunately not everyone in the bass world gets this.

It's just whiny snobbery. There is NO SUCH THING as an accurate "flat" bass sound, but as the douche factor in the overall population of bass players has increased in recent years, so too has this idiocy become an accepted notion. It goes hand in hand with the idea that if you can't get a good tone out of your bass with the sound set "flat," you are an inferior player. Even with active preamps, loading and current limitation of preamps(onboard, outboard, and in-amp) and power amps impose sonic coloration in various ways, and there is not a speaker made by ANYONE at ANY cost that imparts nothing of its own to a bass sound. I have a simpler solution: I plays basses which have the tones I like regardless of where I turn the knobs, and unlike over 90% of other bass players, I know how all those controls work, but rather than obsess over a trend, I just practice more and put the knobs where I like them.

[exiledarchangel]

There is NO SUCH THING as an accurate "flat" bass sound

+1. If you want a "natural" "flat" or whatever sound, feel free to give me your electric bass and go buy an upright or something.

[Dave W]

It's just whiny snobbery. There is NO SUCH THING as an accurate "flat" bass sound, but as the douche factor in the overall population of bass players has increased in recent years, so too has this idiocy become an accepted notion. It goes hand in hand with the idea that if you can't get a good tone out of your bass with the sound set "flat," you are an inferior player. Even with active preamps, loading and current limitation of preamps(onboard, outboard, and in-amp) and power amps impose sonic coloration in various ways, and there is not a speaker made by ANYONE at ANY cost that imparts nothing of its own to a bass sound. I have a simpler solution: I plays basses which have the tones I like regardless of where I turn the knobs, and unlike over 90% of other bass players, I know how all those controls work, but rather than obsess over a trend, I just practice more and put the knobs where I like them.

Amen.

+1. If you want a "natural" "flat" or whatever sound, feel free to give me your electric bass and go buy an upright or something.

That wouldn't work for these people. An upright has its own natural sound that isn't flat at all. They would still obsess about amplifying the upright's sound without coloration, which isn't possible. It's just defective thinking.