Swapping Pick-ups?

[pickle]

So guys here is my question. I have a old P bass which is in a bad way and i am either gonna fix up or use for another project and a brand new bass which i love. The old P has EMG pick-ups and my new bass doesnt seem to have a brand on them. I was wondering if it would be worth while swapping the EMG's to the new bass as i have heard that EMG are really good.

Old Bass:





New Bass:





If not is it possable to buy covers for my pickups on my new bass so the coils dont show?

Thanks

[pickle]

no one?

[Stealth]

Truth be told, there's no knowing how they will sound without actually placing them in - the fact your new bass is a P/J guarantees the sound will be close to the current, but different because of the J-pickup's presence. Best just try to swap them and see the difference.

As for the new pickup covers, you have to dismount the pickups and see if you can separate the pickups from the covers - sometimes they're potted or epoxied into them so they don't rattle around and create noise (rather, to avoid microphonics), the downside is if they're epoxied in, there's no way to mount different covers. In that case you can glue a thin (business-card thick) paper, wood or plastic veneer onto the pickup cover to hide the poles.

[kjpollo]

What kind of bass is the new one? I cant tell from your pics.

Regarding the EMG Select in your existing P-Bass-is it active?
By that I mean-is it powered by a battery?
If it's active, it'll probably sound different from the stock passive P-pickup in your new bass even though the pickup location is pretty much the same.

To add to what Stealth said, if you add it to your new bass, play the new bass with the J pickup backed off entirely at first so you can focus on the P-pickup sound.

If you have access to some recording gear, I'd suggest doing a couple of clips of each bass before you make any swaps and then again after the changeover-that way you can compare the sounds practically side-by-side.
(unless you have a fantastic memory and you can recall exactly what you heard before making the switch).

Also-you say the P-bass is in "a bad way"- whats wrong with it? The only issues I see are a missing volume knob, the name "John" written on it and what looks like some sticker residue on the front of the body.
Is the neck bad? If its not, that bass definitely looks salvageable to me-spruce it up and you'd have 2 basses!

[darkstorm]

Since those emg say select on them, Id say no. Cause that generation of emg passives was not that good. If they had been modern emg passive version Id be much more inclined to say they could be an improvement over whats in the other bass.

[mmbongo]

Yeah notice they say 'designed' by EMG...they not real EMG's.