Noiseless Replacement Pickups for Passive Warwick Corvette Ash (4 string)

[FiyaPowa]

Hi everyone,

I have a German-made Passive Warwick Corvette 4-string Ash with the stock J-style MEC Pickups that I recently obtained and I absolutely love the tone of it, but it is extremely noisy and susceptible to RF noise such as fluorescent lights, etc. I tried shielding the pickup and control cavities with very little success. I have been an electronics technician for many years, so shielding ability, soldering and general troubleshooting is not an issue.

So the question is: Has anyone replaced the stock J-style MEC pickups in a passive Warwick Corvette Ash 4-string and maintained the stock tone as close as possible and only lost the noise? If so, what pickups did you replace them with?

The objective is to maintain all of that growl/grunt/grind (use whatever adjective works for you) that Warwick Corvettes are known for. I know there are some great J-pickups out there and I already have a Fender Jazz with Nordstrands, but the objective is not to sound like a J, but to sound like a Corvette.

If anyone has before and after sound-clips, that would be absolutely awesome.

Thanks for the help everyone.

[mwharvey]

I replaced the stock MEC pickups in a passive corvette standard (not ash) because the stock pickups were buzzing on stage under some types of lights. I replaced the MEC's with ultra jazz pickups and haven't had noise problems since.

[joelb79]

MEC and EMG actives sound similar, with the EMG's having a bit more beef to the MEC's thinner sound. If I had a Warwick I would be going the EMG route. There are some sound clips online where people have switched out the MEC's to EMG's, both before and after. Worth a listen.. One thing you will never hear with your EMG's is noise. And you remove the ground to bridge when you install them, so when everybody else at the gig is getting shocks through the microphones you wont.

[FiyaPowa]

Originally Posted by mwharvey

I replaced the stock MEC pickups in a passive corvette standard (not ash) because the stock pickups were buzzing on stage under some types of lights. I replaced the MEC's with ultra jazz pickups and haven't had noise problems since.

Thanks for the info @mwharvey. Besides losing the noise, which is a huge bonus, how did they sound? Did they sound very similar to the passive MEC's tone wise?

@joelb79 - I'd like to avoid active pickups/preamps if possible and keep it a passive bass, just without the noise. Thanks.

[mwharvey]

Not really. I think they sound fuller and don't have as much mid-range bite. Keep in mind that mine is not ash, its bubinga.

[FiyaPowa]

Hmm. Maybe Area J's or Model J's may be better for me then. Thanks for that tidbit. Very valuable.