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55-01 with Nordstrand Dual Coils
- Thread starter billbern
- Start date
I promised a review of this mod after a few gig situations. well here is my reponse to a PM i got earlier today.
55-01, nice bass, well constructed, good B, nice neck. But, there was a narrow range of settings where I liked the sound, boomy low, not much punch, harsh highs and hi mids. Mine has a Lakland Factory installed Bart NTMB-L, better, but not great. Now let me premise these next statements with the fact that I'm still in the "honeymoon" stage with this mod. but these Nord Dual Coils are everything I was hoping for, tight, punchy lows, nice "growly" mids, crisp highs. I used the bass w/mods this weekend on three very different gigs, very good in all.
Praise Team- The 55-01 has NOt been to my liking at church in the past, too boomy and "soft" in the lows. I normally use my Ken Smith BSR here. W/dual Coils, very solid lows, mids-highs cut without being harsh-SUCCESS
Classic Rock- This band is loud and the 55-01 does a pretty good job here with some EQ help. In this setting the Dual Coils turned a good bass into a REALLY good bass-SUCCESS
Country/Southern Rock- This room is big and very boomy, the 55-01 has never worked in this room. I usually use my Peavey Millennium 5+ w/TI Jazz Flats. The Dual Coils sounded great here, great sound, lots of options with Series/ Single/Parallel switches-SUCCESS
I'm sure these pickups are not everything for everybody, but for me they have made the sound of this bass equal to the construction and playablity
Bill
55-01, nice bass, well constructed, good B, nice neck. But, there was a narrow range of settings where I liked the sound, boomy low, not much punch, harsh highs and hi mids. Mine has a Lakland Factory installed Bart NTMB-L, better, but not great. Now let me premise these next statements with the fact that I'm still in the "honeymoon" stage with this mod. but these Nord Dual Coils are everything I was hoping for, tight, punchy lows, nice "growly" mids, crisp highs. I used the bass w/mods this weekend on three very different gigs, very good in all.
Praise Team- The 55-01 has NOt been to my liking at church in the past, too boomy and "soft" in the lows. I normally use my Ken Smith BSR here. W/dual Coils, very solid lows, mids-highs cut without being harsh-SUCCESS
Classic Rock- This band is loud and the 55-01 does a pretty good job here with some EQ help. In this setting the Dual Coils turned a good bass into a REALLY good bass-SUCCESS
Country/Southern Rock- This room is big and very boomy, the 55-01 has never worked in this room. I usually use my Peavey Millennium 5+ w/TI Jazz Flats. The Dual Coils sounded great here, great sound, lots of options with Series/ Single/Parallel switches-SUCCESS
I'm sure these pickups are not everything for everybody, but for me they have made the sound of this bass equal to the construction and playablity
Bill
Thanks for the review Bill!!
Looks like you have yourself a winner. Are you contemplating a new pre?
Looks like you have yourself a winner. Are you contemplating a new pre?
Cool, thanks for the review. The Nordstrands sound like what I might be looking for. I actually like the sound of the MK1s overall, but I do wish they had a tighter bottom.
No. not at this time. I'm pretty happy with the NTMB/ Dual Coil combo.
I am contemplating a 55-01 Fretless project, with Nordstrand Fat Stacks and an Audere pre, but that's down the road.
Bill
Ah, dang!!
Have you tried the Audere with the Nordstrands? I'm thinking about getting a J-style for my Fender with Nordie single coils.
Does anybody (Including the man himself, Carey Nordstrand) know if I can fit DC pickups into my Ibanez SR506? They have MK-1's as well, and it's a 6 string.
If I can fit them on, I"d certainly love to do a Nord/Audere thing in there. The Nords to bring the aggressiveness I want, the Audere to give the shaping I want (I love the idea of the Z-switch).
If I can fit them on, I"d certainly love to do a Nord/Audere thing in there. The Nords to bring the aggressiveness I want, the Audere to give the shaping I want (I love the idea of the Z-switch).
The Nordstrand Pickup website has the physical size for all thier pickups, then you could just measure your current pickups.
You can. If it is MK1s. The Nordstrands are just a little smaller. Well I dont know about a 6 string but you can check out his site. If not Bartolini is making Classic series DC replacments for the MKs.
Not being a fan of Bartolini's inherent politeness, I have still not found a pickup that will fit just right. The MK-1's used in Ibanez's basses today are, in fact, the same pickup no matter what string number.
I know this is an old thread, but I finally got some decent clips of the Dual Coils with various coil and pick up pan options.
All Recordings are :
Lakland 55-01 Rosewood board
Nordstrand Dual Coils wound Parallel
Bart NTMB-L (set-flat)
TI Super Alloy Strings(cleaned but not new)
Played with a pick (sorry, it's my weapon of choice on this bass)
UA Solo 610 DI, Digi 002, Protools, no processing, tweaking, just straight in.
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All Recordings are :
Lakland 55-01 Rosewood board
Nordstrand Dual Coils wound Parallel
Bart NTMB-L (set-flat)
TI Super Alloy Strings(cleaned but not new)
Played with a pick (sorry, it's my weapon of choice on this bass)
UA Solo 610 DI, Digi 002, Protools, no processing, tweaking, just straight in.
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I like the sound overall of my MKIs now in my 55-01 but like someone said the bottom end is sort of loose and doesn't have great punch. Do the DCs completely change the sound, or do they just tweak it a little and make it better? I sort of feel like "If It Ain't Broke..." right now but I wonder how much better my tone could get.
Chef
In Memoriam
Nice tones....
too bad we can't hear them vs. the barts...
actually not a lot of stark differences between settings...more subtle...
I still didn't hear that "warm jazz" tone. I was expecting to hear something like that in "blendedsingle", and it was definitely the closest...but didn't quite get there, IMO.
all the tones were useable, for sure...nothing knocked my socks off, though....could be the bass, could be the super alloys....don't know...
don't get me wrong, I still like the sounds enough to consider 55-01 as a future purchase...it's just that for me, the jury's still out.
too bad we can't hear them vs. the barts...
actually not a lot of stark differences between settings...more subtle...
I still didn't hear that "warm jazz" tone. I was expecting to hear something like that in "blendedsingle", and it was definitely the closest...but didn't quite get there, IMO.
all the tones were useable, for sure...nothing knocked my socks off, though....could be the bass, could be the super alloys....don't know...
don't get me wrong, I still like the sounds enough to consider 55-01 as a future purchase...it's just that for me, the jury's still out.
please keep in mind that these were not "great sound settings", they are as generic as I could get them. The idea was to let the "basic" sound come through, pick up selection was all bridge, all neck or centered, in real life I never use those setting. I will FAVOR one pickup or the other. Also the onboard pre-amp and Pro tools was dead flat. probably the greatest impact on the sound is the fact that I played those with a pick,maybe I'll make somemore clips with fingers and slap.
to TehRoflCoper, when I was contemplating this mod, I didn't want to lose what the MK-1's did, I just wanted refinement and more options. I think I got exactly what I was looking for.
Bill
how about making 1 or 2 clips with your favorite settings...
blend wise, tone control wise...I'd like to hear some more....
I've been wanting to go 55-02, but they're just out of reach price-wise for me...so a 55-01 is definitely worth considering...but one of the things I want is to be able to get a decent Jazz vibe among other things...otherwise, I may just go with a Squier Jazz (seriously, I like the sound of them).
I'd love to hear them!
Yeah, like I said my biggest beefs with these electronics are lack of high end--they're quite dark--and the low end, especially the b string, is a little bit lacking. Otherwise, I love what it does--I want sometime similar, just better, if that makes sense.
Here are some "real world" clips
Classic rock band gig last Saturday
55-01, Dual Coils, TI Superalloys,DI
These are the three most common settings I use live.
As you can tell it was an open bar, LOL
AM
hi-fi URL: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Listen
hi-fi URL: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Only One
hi-fi URL: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Classic rock band gig last Saturday
55-01, Dual Coils, TI Superalloys,DI
These are the three most common settings I use live.
As you can tell it was an open bar, LOL
AM
hi-fi URL: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Listen
hi-fi URL: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Only One
hi-fi URL: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
thank you!
thank you! that's what I wanted to hear...now I'm really excited (can you tell?)
that's just AWESOME! that's 95% of the deep, rich, yet defined tone that's been in my head for 10 years!
- Aug 7, 2004
- 346
- 1
- Disclosures
- Authorised BFM and fEARful cab builder: New Zealand
Nice clips - I liked the tone on the first song the most.
I know you have a Lakland, but if you were building a brand new bass a-la Fender Jazz style from scratch, would you be putting the Nordstrand Dual Coils in?
Mo
