Aguilar hum cancel pickups, any users?
 

Thinking about replacing my Bassline J pickups as they hum too much for my taste. I like that the Aguilar stays with a single coil design for their hum free pick ups. Any users out there, how do they compare in sound to standard Jazz Fender pickups?

To the best of my knowledge, Aguilar actually produces three models of hum-canceling J-style pickups: Ultra Jazz, Model J, and Area J. Each one has its own tonal signature. To which one(s) are you referring? :hmm:

Strictly speaking, I think you must mean "single-coil form factor", since none of these models is single-coil in terms of actual function.

That said, it is the Area Js that come closest to the sound of a traditional Fender Jazz - at least to a 60s Jazz Bass. The others each do something different, i.e. more modern, more powerful & more distinctive.

MM

I'm pretty sure you're thinking of DiMarzio pickups, not Aguilar...

Indeed he is.

Oops, my bad. That's what I get for not thinking before I post... :o

MM

No such thing. Single coil pickups do not humcancel. Unless you are using two of them, RWRP, at equal volume, or a dummy coil setup.

Aguilar are end-to-end humbuckers, with one coil sensing the E&A strings, and the other coil sensing the D&G strings.

Ok, that's a split-coil, not a single coil.

I have them and I like them, but they're not a "vintage minus hum" sound. The neck pickup sounds fat and solos better than the standard Jazz neck pickup, to my taste, and I'd say the bridge is warmed up at the expense of some of the classic upper-mid "quack". However, it seems to me like they're quite responsive to both touch and speaker choice; in particular, the bridge is much more vocal and quackier through my SWR 15" than my Carvin 3-way.

The output difference between neck and bridge is pretty noticeable in mine, to the point that if I have the neck soloed and roll the bridge up, the drop in total output is audible. This kind of bugs me and I'm wondering whether I should try to find a way to boost the bridge output to compensate for it somehow. That's my only complaint.

-NT

That is pretty disappointing, I spoke to Marco at Aguilar and he said they sound I between their 60 and 70 vintage pickups. Not sure what to believe at this point.

New way to sell pre-amps? :hiding:

This is one "problem" with sticking to vintage specs. On a stock Jazz bass the two pickups wound the same. On more modern pickups the bridge pickup is often wound hotter.

I just changed from the Aguilar 70s pickups to the hum cancelling ones. I don't experience any difference in output between the neck and bridge. They are, however dead quiet to my ears and my impression is that they are clearer, giving more nuances. I'm extremely happy with them and the 72 Jazz has taken on a whole new level of useability. Highly recommended.

Which pickups are brigher, the 70's or the single coil hum cancelled pickups? Also just wondering why you changed from the 70's pickups they have.

I believe the 70s pickups are slightly brighter and the impression is that the hum-cancelling set has a little more pronounced upper midrange. In a mix though, I dare say no-one could tell. I switched because the single coil hum annoys me and keeps me from using any sounds other than both on at 100%. Now I can get the sonic versatility that the bass really has.

I recently acquired a nice Fender AM deluxe 5 2012 and I'm not very happy with the N3 pickups.

Tose pickups realy lacks the "growl" I like in the singnle coils. I've read that it was typical for stacked coil humcancelling pickups.

Do you feel those Agui HC still have that famous single coil growl ?

I've heard a clip of the AG J60's and they are realy the tone I like but hte hum will come with those I suppose ?

Thanks

here's a video demoing the aggies
 

I did this video review for my web site last week, hope it helps :)

http://labasslix.com/aguilar-ag-4j-hc-pickups/

Thanks.

I've seen that video and it is the only one I could find.

From what I can hear, it seems that those pickups does not have the agressive growl of single coils but so many things can come into the game that it is difficult to juge.

The MLP videos for the agui 60's pickups are very impressive sounding almost 70's like.

thanks again

I wanted to resurrect this thread to amend my comments below, in case people find them while searching for info on these pickups. It turns out that a pot in my bass was failing, so the neck pickup was never actually going to zero volume! That affected the sound when I thought I was soloing the bridge pickup.

With a replacement pot, the bridge pickup sounds louder (a loading issue, I guess?) and has much more of the expected quack, especially if I leave the tone knob wide open. I'm now feeling like they're much closer to "vintage minus hum" than I originally thought, but with a fatter, livelier neck-pickup sound that I think is an unalloyed improvement.

Let this be a lesson to you, dear reader: If you're going to review pickups, do it with a fully working bass! Bother.

-NT