Villex

[uptowndirt]

Hi, I am thinking of a pup change out on my dj-4 and the villex j's have me thinking.....any thoughts ? they have a separate pot that comes with...would it just replace the tone pot on control plate ?

[fullrangebass]

The pot you are referring to is the mid-control. This pot is an integral part of the Villex pickups that "bleeds" mids away, morphing the mids (not a mere mid-cut). This pot can be used in conjunction with the classic tone pot to allow for a huge pallet of tones, or one can omit the tone pot (like myself). The use of a concentric vol pot (vol/vol) will allow you to keep both the mid control pot as well as your tone pot.

[tubby.twins]

I'd like to add that Villex pickups are some of the most natural, clear and neutral sounding pickups that I've tried. They present a very accurate portrait of the tone of your bass, including the wood, strings, and frets (if any). There is a lot of clean, usable midrange and crisp treble detail. Even the bridge pickup brings out a great fundamental.

The midrange control is nice to have. I usually leave mine set to full (i.e. bleeding nothing away) but it is fun to experiment.

[uptowndirt]

I was hoping for a big bottom barking kind of tone, how do you adj. the tone (mid) pot if it is internal ?

[fullrangebass]

The huge fundamental and big bottom is there (as well as mids and amazing clarity). The mid control pot is connected to the pair of non signal related wires that come out of the pickup, thus allowing the user to determine how much mids he is "bleeding" out (none to max). This allows the user to achieve "acoustic" tones to full mid tones. Dare I suggest that if the big bottom barking kind of tone is what you are after, the incorporation of the bass PRTB along with the Villex pickups, will give you more than you had ever hoped for (huge Dub/Reggae tones in a breeze)

[uptowndirt]

sorry kind of slow what does PRTB stand for ?

[tubby.twins]

PRTB stands for "passive rotary tone booster". It's available separately, and can be used with Villex as well as other pickups.

[uptowndirt]

where do you get a "passive rotary tone booster" do they have a brand name, as well would you consider the villex to be a better choice than lane poor j's

[tubby.twins]

http://www.villex.com/prtb.html

The big advantage of the Villex pickups over Lane Poor Jazz-style pickups (which also sound good, by the way) is that the Villex pickups work better in a passive-only configuration, due to the higher output level. Even if you don't use the midrange control (or the optional PRTB) you'll still get a louder signal from your bass to your amp (or pre-amp).

Additionally, I think the Villex pickups present a more wide-band and cleaner signal than the Lane Poor Jazz-style pickups, which have a more narrow aperture.

On the other hand, the Lane Poor pickups (wide aperture) do have a bit more "sweetness" in the treble details. Perhaps they output more of the frequencies above 5KHz, which is why the overtones and harmonics seem to have a bit more treble detail, despite the lower volume.