Switching to Bartolini pick ups

[VonGeiss]

hey i'm new to this forum and the whole bass electronics thing and i was wondering how hard a conversion would be. i have a Spector Legend 5 with a bolt on neck and the emg-hz pick ups. its a jazz pick up in the front with a soap bar in the back. recently i tried an ibanez prestige and i loved the sound of the Bartolini pick ups and i either want a bass with them or i guess in the sense of saving money i would rather just put them in my Spector. Can anyone tell me if this has been done before or if it's even possible?

[fourstringbliss]

Originally Posted by VonGeiss

hey i'm new to this forum and the whole bass electronics thing and i was wondering how hard a conversion would be. i have a Spector Legend 5 with a bolt on neck and the emg-hz pick ups. its a jazz pick up in the front with a soap bar in the back. recently i tried an ibanez prestige and i loved the sound of the Bartolini pick ups and i either want a bass with them or i guess in the sense of saving money i would rather just put them in my Spector. Can anyone tell me if this has been done before or if it's even possible?

It really depends on how much you like your Spector. The Ibanez Prestige line have USA Bartolini pickups. You can get Bartolini MK-1 pickups and preamps in a lot of mid priced basses like my Lakland 55-01 but they are definitely not USA Barts. The MK-1 pickups sound pretty good, but the preamp is crap.

If you want a bass that comes with USA Barts you'll have to shell out some serious coin! It would definitely be more cost effective to buy USA replacements.

[SGD Lutherie]

As long as you can use a screw driver and soldering iron, it's very simple to swap the pickups.

The new ones should be a direct replacement size (just double check the J) and you just have to solder the new pickups to the existing pots, once you removed the old pickups (by unsoldering them).

[VonGeiss]

alright cool sounds like i'll just go out and buy the right sized pick ups