Alnico or Ceramic in my Warwick Jazzman?

RavCat · #1 01-25-2007, 01:48 AM

I have a custom shop Warwick Streamer Jazzman which I've never quite been satisfied with the tone of. It's made out of bubinga, and I've always thought the sound was quite tinny and dry lacking both the top end "zing" and the rich bottom end that would make it the slap machine it deserves to be. It has the stock MEC pups and pre in at the moment.

I'm seriously considering swapping out the MM pickup with a Seymour Duncan SMB5A or SMB5D but I cannot decide whether the alnico or ceramic would be the best choice. I'm trying to get close to that classic Stingray sound (Louis Johnson, Flea, etc) and so the alnico seems to be the accurate choice, but I'm concerned that coupled with the bubinga, it could end up with even less warmth than I have at the moment.

I've also heard a lot about Basslines pickups already sounding similar to their MEC counterparts. Does this ring true for the MM pickpups?

What should I do?

needmoney · #2 01-25-2007, 04:47 AM

Haven't had experience with the Bassline stuff. Although if you're trying to cop a tone similar to Flea/Louis then you need Ash body and Maple neck/fretboard man. Right now you got Bubinga and Ovangkol/Wenge which is tooootally different. I'd suspect a pickup change would help, I agree the MEC stuff is quite dry.

IMO I think a great choice with the wood combo you have would be Bartolini pickups/preamp. A friend of mine has a Corvette (Bubinga/Wenge/Wenge) with a full Bart setup and it has a nice girthy low end, and a sparkly top that isn't anything like the harsh top of the MEC's. It really sounds fantastic. I also swapped out my MEC's for Barts and they sound much nicer to my ears. Something I'd definitely look into doing.

RavCat · #3 01-29-2007, 03:14 AM

Thanks for the info so far - would you say that the Alnico sounds more "hi-fi"?

Rano Bass · #4 01-29-2007, 05:20 AM

I think a different preamp would help more than new pickups, a Bart or OBP 3 would work well IMO.

Shoewreck · #5 01-31-2007, 03:49 AM

Piezos give extended range - less mids, but deeper lows and much more highs. I'm not shure if it's easy to find one that fits WW bridge.