help me get this tone please

[joelb79]

Originally Posted by 64jazzbass

To the O.P. be careful not to bring your pickups to close to the strings with single coils. This can result in an out of phase sound in the upper registers which is annoying. I don't think pickup height has much to do with his sound IMO

This is true as well; although I seriously doubt you can get those kinds of dynamics with extremely low pickup height. That tends to lend a compressed dynamics sound with less lows and highs.

Originally Posted by shwashwa

after researching more here on TB i think that my issue may indeed be pickup height. i will mess with it tomorrow, thanks joel, i had no idea about that factor. one question though, as i mentioned, i think on at least one of my basses the pickups are maxxed out and still far away, what can i do for that?

Mouse pad rubber works. I like to order and use this stuff but its pricey and I'm positive it could be sourced elsewhere (try the weatherstripping, but get the big stuff). But the Fender stuff doesn't wear out fast and makes it easy to set good height for Jazz pickups.

[shwashwa]

i just wanted to make an fyi post for all those who were nice enough to give me advice in this thread. i just measured all the bridge pickups on my J type basses and only one was in the 2 milimeter range. its a passive with single coils, and that happens to be the bass that i can get closest to that tone with. the rest were in the 5mm range. the quality that i like about his tone is that the notes are clear, but you can still hear the finger pop at the beginning of the note, i guess it makes sense that the further from the string the pickup is the less of that you would get. ill do some experimenting today...

[64jazzbass]

[quote=joelb79;13671106]This is true as well; although I seriously doubt you can get those kinds of dynamics with extremely low pickup height. That tends to lend a compressed dynamics sound with less lows and highs.

I respectfully disagree. Jimmy Coppolo installed a set of custom wound pickups in my '73 Jazz and set them as low as they could go height wise and explained that I would get better sustain and note definition this way. I was worried about volume and he simply said " turn your amp up". Tom Petersson of Cheap Trick subscribes to this theory as well. I Personally think it improved my tone although I did have to boost my amp volume. It may not work for everyone's tone goals but the last thing I hear is compressed dynamics And I think the highs and lows are cleaner. IMO. Again, I think it is the attack and feel at least with Richard Bona that affect his tone more than anything.