Fretless with P/J setup

JTGale · #1 02-25-2005, 01:06 AM

I have a chance to put my hands on a nice walnut body that has yet to be drilled for pickups. I have always wanted a fretless and wonder, with the darker wood-tones the walnut will have, if I should go with a P/J pickup setup as opposed to a J/J setup.

Any thoughts? Would P/J be too "bright" for that fretless mwah?

Thanks!

JTGale · #2 02-25-2005, 10:43 AM

... oh, and one other thing. I am considering a neck made out of wenge with an ebony fingerboard, unlined. The walnut with the ebony and the wenge should make a nice, dark tone, right?

jaguarcat311 · #3 02-25-2005, 11:01 AM

You can always go with a set of bartolinis, dimarzios, or seymour duncans. They all make replacement j's that are dual coil, basically a skinny p pickup in a j casing. I think the sound matches better that way. ive never been a big fan of p pickups, but my present bass came with a set of bartolini p/j's and they sound amazing (first good sounding p pickup ive ever heard). bartolini also makes bright tone and deep tone versions. i got a set of bright tones and if you turned down the tone, i think you could get whatever sound you want. p's are a bit deeper and more open sounding, if you go with a p/j, i would get a dual coil j to match the p better. dual coil pickups are more growly anyway. well im no pro about fretless but i hope my rambling helped you out.

MichaelVee · #4 02-25-2005, 11:58 AM

This week, I put a Warmoth maple neck with ebony fretless board on my old Warmoth walnut P-bass body, which has EMG P-J pickups. This bass has the Carvin LaBella black tapewounds on it.

NICE combination. I actually prefer the tone of the P pickup, with the treble rolled off a bit, or a lot. Very warm and enchanting fretless tone.

However, various combinations of P and J yield a lot of nice, and usable, tone variations.

I will be using this bass for an upcoming musical theatre production, rehearsals for which start Sunday.

JTGale · #5 02-25-2005, 02:16 PM

Thanks for the response, guys. My first choice for pickups are Bartolini's. I have them in my Renegade and in my Lakland. They are really, really nice. But, I am considering buying Nordstrands this time around. Maybe if I went with a fatstack, then I could have the best of both worlds. Then again, the P rolled off in combination with the walnut and ebony sounds nice, too.

Decisions, decisions, decisions ... I will get there ...

(GAS is an awful, awful thing!

)