Pickup replacement - Do it yourself??

[ehinkley]

Just wanted to see if most people recommend having a pro replace pickups, or is it that easy to do it yourself and do it right?

[Liko]

Aftermarket pickups usually come with wiring diagrams and instructions that are pretty difficult to mess up. I would be more worried about your soldering skills. Unskilled or careless soldering can result in cold joints, burnt insulation, or fried caps/pots. Practice if you can on scraps of wire and/or "dead pots" before you attempt soldering in your bass. It really isn't difficult, it just requires a little practice to do well.

[luknfur]

Originally Posted by ehinkley

Just wanted to see if most people recommend having a pro replace pickups, or is it that easy to do it yourself and do it right?

I would say a poll would be an appropriate addition to your thread, probably get more response, and probably the only way to get a decent sample.

I would speculate the vast majority of guys do their own swaps as you can do LOTS of modification with no real knowledge base of how what your putting together works but only how it goes together to make it work to get the results. Custom/high dollar basses take up the majority of outsourcing.

In as much, a lot of posts in this forum are about trouble shooting.

I would skim through FAQ Dimento's Trouble Shooting Guide (the bass mod link within the 1st paragraph as well) and the soldering link in FAQ.

[jim primate]

for the most part, these days i do my own wiring/rewiring.

too costly to send it to a shop.

[12bass]

Replacing active with active or passive with passive generally isn't too much trouble - just unsolder the old and solder in the new. It is where you start messing with passive/active conversions where things get complicated - you need to replace pots and add extra wiring for powering the pickups. The reverse being the case for active/passive conversions....

[ehinkley]

Thanks for all the help guys.