| Hi everyone, thanks for the advice. Here's how it all turned out ...
The EMG website lists the JX-CS pickups, but no retailers had them, so I sent EMG an email, and quickly got a very helpful phone call from someone there explaining to me that I can special order them, and they recommended bestbassgear.com
Yay EMG.
I then emailed bestbassgear, and quickly got another great phone call back from them, where we talked through what I wanted, and they also advised me on preamps (going from the HZ to the JX-CS pickups requires changing a pot, and I was in a serious what the-heck-mood and went for the EMG BQC preamp). I was worried about the possible price for a special order, but it turned out very nice (even less than many of the other EMG pickups they had).
Yay bestbassgear.
I figured it might take a month or so, but within two weeks, I got my package. Sadly, it was missing a pickup (somewhere in the special order process something got scrambled), but bestbassgear again came through, and got me the second one as fast as could be expected, with no extra charge express mail.
Double yay bestbassgear. I heartily recommend them, they really took good care of me start to finish.
Got it all wired up the other day in my Schecter, and I gotta say, the solder less system EMG has is sweet. Plugged it in, and ...
Holy ass kicking tone batman, these pickups are SWEET!
Observations:
First, the BQC preamp and these pickups combine for a LOT of different sounds. These pickups seem particularly sensitive to the mid - both the sweep of it and the volume. Adjusting the treble and bass does the normal predictable stuff, but fiddling with the mid leads to big changes in the sound. I haven't noticed that strong of an effect on other basses I've played, so I suspect there's something interesting about the frequency response curve on these pickups in the midrange. Feeling pretty pleased with the move to the three-band pickup (from the original two-band EMG preamp).
Second, with the HZ pickups, pretty much none of the preamp knobs really did anything - both neck and bridge sounded much the same, and the treble and bass didn't do much either. I happened to like the sound it had (one deciding factor for the JX-CS, since they are structurally somewhat similar to the HZ), but wanted more ... dynamism. With these, the bass tone (everything flat) is fairly similar to the HZ (but a bit more ... musical perhaps), but now it can get a lot more variety around that sound, good. And the neck and bridge pickups (both JX-CS) now sound quite different from each other. Soloed, the neck and bridge pickups have very distinct sounds (and I don't particularly like the neck by itself), but mixed, they blend in a quite surprising and magical way, and small adjustments in the knob make a big difference in sound. (I now recall having read threads about that in J basses, which I didn't much understand before).
Sorry, I can't really post sound samples, ... but across the whole sound spectrum they have, they all have in common what I'd describe as a "smooth bite." Going from a fairly round piano-like sound to a funky twangy guitar-like sound, they all have that smooth bite. Listening to all the great samples of the EMG pickups online, I didn't like the jaggedness of the DC, or the slightly harsh sharpness of the J's, and the CS was a bit too ... round. The JX-CS pretty much sounds like what I expected - sharpness of the J's and the smoothness of the CS. I like that, so am loving the sound. It's definitely not what I'd ever call mellow, but is way fun to play, particularly on a funky line. Great attack. It sounds quite like something between a J bass and a Music Man. I also recently got a fretless G&L - that's got the thunder, this has the lightening.
Various folks have had questions about the 'X' line of EMG's pickups. Having tried a few different EMG pickups in stores, and listening to various clips, it does seem the difference between the X and non-X pickups is audible, but perhaps slight.
Anyhoo, thanks for the great clips and advise everyone (I'll see if I can figure out how to get some to share), and if anyone wants to give these a try, I say give them a try. |
