Pickup advice/suggestions for custom 5-string

[fivestringcult]

Hi all, I'm new to the forum, and currently doing some research into possible pickup configurations for a 5-string bass that a friend of mine is going to be building for me.

We're looking to go for White Korina with a Koa top for the body, a maple neck (bolt on) and something dark for the fretboard (most likely ebony). Hopefully this should sound fairly well-balanced, but of course I still want to get the best out of it with the right choice of pickups.

One suggestion that caught my attention from a poster on another forum I frequent was to go passive with a J of some sort at the bridge, and a MM style humbucker near the neck/middle (P-bass pickup position, I guess you'd call it). The overall aim being for the MM to carry the bulk of the tone with the jazz blended in for some extra top end (or to stand more on its own for a brighter sound overall), depending on what the situation calls for.

I'm aware that this is a pretty unusual configuration - the opposite way round being much more common, with the MM traditionally installed nearer the bridge - so although it sounds like an interesting setup, I do have a few reservations about the sort of tones to expect.

For the record, I normally play moderately technical hard rock and metal, but I'd still like to keep my tone options as wide open as realistically possible within a fairly no-nonsense setup, so I can adapt to whatever else I might end up playing in future.

Can someone please advise me on whether this seems like a good idea, or perhaps offer an alternative that I may not have considered? It's still very early days on this build, and I'm pretty green when it comes to choosing/replacing electronics, so I'm open to any suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

[fivestringcult]

Well, so far this thread is a roaring success.

Not sure what the policy here is on bumping threads, but I'm not really used to forums that move quite this fast, and stuff beyond the first page usually gets ignored in my experience.

[Rickett Customs]

Depends what you're trying to do.
Have you decided to use active electronics? Passive?
Although the style pickups are thought of, have you narrowed down what brand you might be interested in? Is this a fretless or a fretted?

You may want to decide these things as well.

[fivestringcult]

Whoops, thought I'd mentioned in my first post that it's going to be passive electronics. It'll also be fretted. Brands I'm currently looking at are Nordstrand, Bartolini, SD Basslines, but I'm certainly open to suggestions.

Pots will likely be Vol/Vol/Tone or Vol/Blend/Tone. Another idea that came up was to install a second MM at the bridge rather than a single Jazz pup, and install a coil tap so I can switch it to single coil mode when necessary. So far though, I have no idea how a MM in single coil would compare tone-wise to a true single, or a dummy/stacked coil single.

Thanks.

[fullrangebass]

I would suggest to look at Villex pickups as well. Full, balanced, organic tone

www.villex.com

[Rickett Customs]

Nords and Barts would be worth looking into as well, also i've heard some good things about Delano. I sway more towards Barts myself, be thats just me, I like the way barts sound on fretlesses.

[timmbass]

I have delano pickups in my jazz. Love them. I got them because I guy I know has delano pickups in his bee bass and I love the sound of his bass.

You might be interested in the following:

http://www.delano.de/products.html?&cHash=524a1391b4&tx_smtdelano_pi1[cat]=1&tx_smtdelano_pi1[series]=8&tx_smtdelano_pi1[strings]=6&tx_smtdelano_pi1[system]=71

[fivestringcult]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll be looking into Delano and Villex as well.

Any thoughts on the pickup configuration itself, with regards to having the MM in p-bass position and the jazz at the bridge? Any disadvantages to this setup that I may not have considered?

[Rickett Customs]

Originally Posted by fivestringcult

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll be looking into Delano and Villex as well.

Any thoughts on the pickup configuration itself, with regards to having the MM in p-bass position and the jazz at the bridge? Any disadvantages to this setup that I may not have considered?

Depends on your scale length. A few of mine, especially the neck pups, are right in the center of a harmonic sweetspot. The ones that are set up like that, sound really sweet when dialed to just the neck.

[timmbass]

I think you would eventually like a more flexible setup that you could get from a HH pickup configuration. Let me point you to some cool bass pickup control diagrams. Go to this site

http://www.bassemporium.com/manuals.php

And go down to Ernie Ball MusicMan Control Function Diagrams.

Then click on

Ernie Ball MusicMan Stingray5 - HH

http://www.bassemporium.com/pdfs/cfd_StingRay5_HH.pdf

and then

Ernie Ball MusicMan Stingray5 - HS

http://www.bassemporium.com/pdfs/cfd_StingRay5_HS.pdf

Note the switch and the pickup numbers that are used with each different switch position. I would think that you would want to find two musicman pickups that allowed you to wire up split, and then figure out the configurations you wanted, and go for it.

If you wired the two outside single coils (1 and 4) in parallel, that would sound like a jazz bass. If you wire the two single coils inside the neck Musicman to be in series, I would think that would sound more like a p bass. Maybe that is what the Musicman normal wiring is. I am not sure on that. So you need to think about what coils you want to use and if you want series or parallel when you have multiple coils on.

[fivestringcult]

Thanks for the links, although I must admit I'm a bit green when it comes to electronics and the like, and I'm having some trouble understanding a few things. How does wiring the pickups in serial or parallel impact the sound, and the way the pickups behave?

As for the scale length - the neck measurements for the new bass will be taken from my current ESP 5-string, which I've always seen listed as 35" everywhere I've read, although I'm pretty certain it's actually 34".

[fullrangebass]

I personally love the j/mm configuration. I never found any use for the j neck sound. I prefer sth thicker in terms of neck tone

[timmbass]

Originally Posted by fivestringcult

...and I'm having some trouble understanding a few things. How does wiring the pickups in serial or parallel impact the sound, and the way the pickups behave?

I can't tell you why, because I do not know. I just know that when I had my jazz bass rewired, they put in a push/pull pot that allowed the bass to go from parallel (typical jazz wiring and sound) to series (that sounds more like a p bass). So I am thinking that while you are thinking about what number or what groups of pickups to have working, you may want to research/think about/ask about series and parallel wiring.

I am thinking that you may want to learn how to make a HH musicman pickup arrangement sound like a Jazz bass, a Musicman bass, and a P bass along with the way you are thinking of making it sound.

Good luck. Sounds like fun to me.

[Brado]

I would, most certainly, recomend Delano pickups. They have just about any pickup configuration you could ever need. Heck...I've got 3 JSBC's in my latest Bee bass! I use the QuadCoils in my 6 string Bee & a P/J setup in my 4 string Bee (w/ the large exposed pole pieces). I've heard a few other basses modified with Delano's & it's quite a step up clarity & fullness of sound. They have "coloring" : like any pickup out there....just not overkill. One of my students has some Delano's put in his Warrior bass....it's a 5 string "Adam Nitti signature." It had Barts. It always sounded muddy in the low mids/ never had any sort of top end clarity. Once you boosted the treble enough to get some "clear" articulation, you had a ton of "HISSSS" from the Bartolini preamp. In went the Delano's & the bass sounds super with the EQ flat. You can boost or cut things & you hear a clear change. There's no need to over boost or over cut things to compensate for "muddy" sounding pickups.