Can grounded and ungrounded pickups live in harmony in the same bass?

[Jontom]

I want to wire 2 EMG ungrounded J pickups and 2 grounded Gibson-type "mudbuckers" into the same EMG BQC onboard preamp. Whats the best way?

[SGD Lutherie]

What exactly do you mean by "ungrounded pickups"? All pickups are grounded. They won't work otherwise.

Do you mean because EMG does use the string ground?

If you mean EMG active pickups, you can't really use those with passive pickups. You have to run the passive pickups though a buffer preamp first, other wise the low impedance of the active pickups will suck all the volume out of the passive pickups.

Also, the EMGs use 25k volumes, and the mudbucker would deed 500k. The 25k pots would also load down the mudbuckers.

[walterw]

+1, and i'm curious what the tonal goal was behind the idea of two mudbuckers and two active jazz pickups in one bass? where were you gonna put them?

[Jontom]

SGD- Yes EMG doesn't use the string ground.
Walterw- I was planning on running standard J placement w/a mudbucker in front of the neck J and one betwixt the neck and bridge J's. 2 3-way switches and a blend would offer soloing/combining of any of the 4.

[SGD Lutherie]

Originally Posted by Jontom

SGD- Yes EMG doesn't use the string ground.
Walterw- I was planning on running standard J placement w/a mudbucker in front of the neck J and one betwixt the neck and bridge J's. 2 3-way switches and a blend would offer soloing/combining of any of the 4.

You can do it if you run the mudbuckers through some kind of buffer. You can use any kind of preamp, or something like the EMG Afterburner. This will allow them to blend with the EMGs.

[Jontom]

If the passive pickups were unbuffered:
What would happen?
I was figuring on a volume difference, but what else?

[Jontom]

If I did the Afterburner:
This is something I can preset the gain to match,
then pack it in the control cavity?

[SGD Lutherie]

Originally Posted by Jontom

If the passive pickups were unbuffered:
What would happen?
I was figuring on a volume difference, but what else?

What happens is they don't mix. The active pickups will over power the passive and you won't really hear them.

You can install the after burner in the bass if you need. What I would do is wire up the passive pickups to their selector switches, then to the after burner, and then to the rest of the circuit.

If you are doing a blend between the EMGs and mudbucker, this would come after the Afterburner, so the EMGs would go to one side of the blend, and the Afterburner to the other. Use the standard EMG blend pot.

[Jontom]

Thanks!

[walterw]

I'd use the earlier PA-2 instead, which is pretty much the same thing. That little jewel is a lot smaller, substituting a tiny trimpot instead of the full-size push-pull pot. The whole idea with these is to preset the gain, then use the mini-toggle to kick it in or out.

It would be easier to pre-adjust, then hide the whole thing inside the cavity somewhere.

(whether stuffing two mudbuckers and two jazz pickups in the same bass is a good idea is a different question. I should point out that there's a reason you don't see basses with extra pickups jammed under every square inch of string in music stores or on stage very often: they usually don't sound that good.)

[Jontom]

Wow. The way I wanted to incorporate the 2 3-way switches would involve using 2 buffers! I was thinking one switch would choose between neckmud/neckmud+neckj/neckj and the other would do bridgemud/bridgemud+bridgej/bridgej. The signal from the switches would be sent to the blend on the BQC. So I'd have to do the buffering PRE switches. That would allow soloing/blending of any of the 4. walterw- LOL Yeah if I ran all 4 at once it would be THE thinnest nasaly bass sound ever! I'm thinking more of an EB-3/Rick/Jazz in one body(using combos of any 2 at one time)-with the ability to go back to a standard j sound. I'm really interested in a mix of the neckmud with the bridgej, a nice combo of round and tight...

[walterw]

maybe you need to just lose the EMG jazz part of it, which is making this all way too complicated. just use all passive pickups, then run whatever pickup combos into the pre.

i can see EB-3 ("neckmud"+bridge J) and jazz of course, but none of this will be remotely rick. also, the bridgemud with either jazz pickup would likely be kind of indistinct, as they'd be right next to each other.

remember, pickup combos don't really "mix" like multiple sound sources; they interact, loading each other's output and basically creating a third sound.

the EB-3 combo sound is not "highs from the bridge mixed with the lows of the neck"; it's the bridge pickup loading down the neck pickup, thinning out its midrange and output, while maybe adding a bit of its own twang. david could likely explain this better than i.