PJ Questions

Bobby King · #1 02-26-2009, 02:04 AM

I've always had an issue with the PJ setup because it seems that it's difficult to just slightly favor one pickup or the other.
As soon as one is made a little louder, it quickly overpowers the other and they don't blend evenly. Is this because of an ohmage mismatch?

I've found the EMG active PJs to work the best as far as blending. You can dial in as much of one or the other pickup without any sudden jump in the sound.

My problem is that I don't love EMGs

They don't have the edge and growl of passive pickups. So I'm wondering, is there a passive PJ combination that addresses this problem? Do you need to use a stacked J that will match the ohmage of the P pickup?

Any recommendations?

Thanks!

Miesside · #2 02-26-2009, 02:41 AM

hi bobby,,

i've heard that the Bill lawrence PJ pickups are good on passive.. not sure about the sound..

hope this helps alittle.

**SamanthaCay** · #3 02-26-2009, 02:48 AM

i would go with a higher ohmage on the j pickup because it is closer to the bridge and will receive less vibrations from the strings. I’d say your best bet would be to have someone build you a custom wound set. go with a p that's around 6.5 and a j that's around 8. also you could try setting your p pickup a lot lower to compensate and level out the volume. oh and this guy dose some nice work as far as the pickup winding goes. www.deltoroguitars.com best of luck.

Projectile · #4 02-26-2009, 03:09 AM

I've never heard a PJ combination that blended well. I usually only use one position at a time. That's just my experience with PJ basses. Something about mixing the two types of tones just never worked right. I think this is why PJ basses may have never really gained much popularity.

Bobby King · #5 02-26-2009, 10:01 AM

For me, the idea with a PJ is to basically have a P sound, but then dial in some of the mids and definition that you get from a J bridge pickup. You can more or less do this with EMGs, but as I said, they lack the edge and growl of passive pickups.

I've never been a person that can play on a soloed bridge J pickup, so there's no point to me in having a passive PJ where you only use one pickup at a time. What I like about a JJ is that you can get a lot of tonal variation depending on the relative levels of the pickups.

It would seem that to make it work passive, you'd need a stacked, hum-cancelling J pickup with ohmage thats close to the P pickup that you're using.

lemur821 · #6 02-26-2009, 03:15 PM

Impedance, guys. Not ohmage.

Thundar · #7 02-26-2009, 03:19 PM

Never gained popularity? Hmmmmm...I guess Spector never got that memo.

Anyways, I love me some P/J's and they are my favorite pickup combination.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Projectile

I've never heard a PJ combination that blended well. I usually only use one position at a time. That's just my experience with PJ basses. Something about mixing the two types of tones just never worked right. I think this is why PJ basses may have never really gained much popularity.

Bobby King · #8 02-26-2009, 07:38 PM

OK, impedence. But how do you get them to blend?

Nedmundo · #9 02-27-2009, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby King

OK, impedence. But how do you get them to blend?

For completely progressive blending, I think you need an active impedence buffer. I believe Audere preamps have this.

dregsfan · #10 03-28-2009, 07:20 PM

Bobby King, Go to the Audere website, and he mentions his buffered blend using the pj configuration as an example. Been considering that pre just for the blend feature. I'd like to hear comments on how it works with pj if anyone has tried it.
-John

spade2you · #11 03-28-2009, 07:54 PM

An 18v Mike Pope pre-amp can really warm up EMGs to interesting dynamics. While I rarely blend my bass with Bartolini PJ pickups because I totally dig the P and J sounds, but I don't notice a dramatic jump in volume when blended.

dropbass · #12 03-29-2009, 07:38 AM

lower the jazz pup so it just bleeds in a bit and the P pup dost the heavy lifting... mine sounded like a hot P..... i would get that config again i loved the sound of that bass....

dropbass · #13 03-29-2009, 07:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Projectile

I've never heard a PJ combination that blended well. I usually only use one position at a time. That's just my experience with PJ basses. Something about mixing the two types of tones just never worked right. I think this is why PJ basses may have never really gained much popularity.

so duff's awesome rock tone???????not that i love G&R...but his bass tone is awesome on those albums... and give a listen to the velvet revolver stuff...all PJ.....

PJSShearer · #14 03-29-2009, 08:09 AM

I've used a Dimarzio PJ Combo in my Precision since 1979 - in those days I had to buy the J bass pair and throw one away!!. I've tried many different wiring setups since then, but I finally settled on Jazz Bass wiring - 2 volume + 1 tone with a Series/Paralell switch on the P and a phase reversal between the two.

Funnily enough I've just ordered an EMG J pickup to add to the EMG P I have in my Yamaha BB400S fretless. Personally, I find the EMG P pickup has all the growl and grunt I need - I'd just like to be able to get a wider range of tones without having to mess with the amp settings.

nagruv5150 · #15 04-01-2009, 11:25 PM

Duncan QP's here in my Ibanez. I'm definitely a noob, but I run my p at WFO and dial up the J for a little more smoothness.