I'd also like to share my experience with Aero pickups. no affiliation, never spoke with anyone from the company...
tl;dr - they are fantastic.
so, my first encounter with Aero pickups was through one of the early Lakland DJ4 basses - must have been between 2004 and 2006, a little fuzzy on the exact date, but I clearly remember where it was: a GTG of a slovenian version of Talkbass. so, the usual, a bunch of players trying out a bunch of basses. I was just done being thoroughly dissapointed by a vintage Fender J, and was about to skip this Lakland Skyline in Lake Placid Blue (1 ply white, badly cut pickguard; bad binding job on the neck; what appeared to be not really tight neck pocket routing). but the owner urged me to try it out. ok, his amp was identical to mine at the time (EBS HD350), sitting on top of Schroeder cab (close enough to my full EBS rig), so familiar turf. I play the first note and immediately turn the bass over to look for the battery compartment. after founding none, I start messing with the controls, still thinking the tone control must be active treble boost, with the battery under the control plate... nope. all passive. sounded loud and clear. great dynamic range. there are pickups that sound ok, but you feel they compress when you play - you dig, but nothing more comes out, the sound does not change in any way (looking your way, Bartolini MK1). not here. these were... amazing. so, I tried each pickup soloed, both full on, toyed with the tone control, wow. that's
it. I think the owner told me they did not make the 5-string version at the time, which was a deal breaker for me. but this is a rare occurence for me to remember it so vividly - except for that terrible Fender J and this DJ4, I recall absolutely no other basses from that evening. would have probably forgotten about the Fender as well, had it not been just before the DJ4 and such a contrast.
fast forward to late 2010 or early 2011, I was at the masterclass at the academy in Rotterdam (the Netherlands) where I studied, and accompanying one of the guitar teachers was one of the top dutch electric bass players. his bass sounded like that DJ4, except it was what appeared to be a vintage (or visually distressed) Fender. I even went to check the pickups (the guy was not there, so I could not ask him about it), the pickup covers seemed to be the same age as the bass. that does not tell you anything, but yeah... I left puzzled about that, but soon learned that this bass player is a fan of Aero pickups, has them in his signature bass, made by a great dutch luthier. ok, so these pickups are apparently consistent in sound and quality.
another jump to May 2014, I just traded a Boss GT-10B + some cash for a sparkly black Lakland Skyline DJ5. mind you, I already checked online and knew that they were not equipped with Aero pickups, but some Lakland-made (designed?) pickups. well, it's a J, one can always replace the pickups. the bass is more than solid, I still own it. so, I test the bass at home with my rig, like the neck pickup (kinda P-ish), underwhelmed by both full on (gotta work the EQ to get Marcus), detest the bridge pickup soloed (no Jaco whatsoever). immediately ordered a pair of Aero pickups - after researching it online, mostly TB
, apparently Darryl Jones liked Type 1, those were installed in the first runs of DJ4, so that's what I got. then, in a very informative TB thread (a guy did his own J pickup shootout, similar to one done in 1999), I learned that the maker of Aero pickups suggested to use 22nF capacitor for the tone control instead of 47nF. whoa. an eye-opener for sure. it does remove the clank and string noise, but that beautiful mid-range is still there. these pickups sound too nice to be hidden behind 47nF cap. went on to replace stock 250k volume pots with 500k, tone pot with no-load pot - made it even brighter. finally removed one volume pot to make space for a rotary 5-way switch, put in a linear 500k volume pot to have better control in the upper range of the volume, and that's it. everyone who tries this bass agrees it is a
keeper. they all ask about the pickups as well. it still surprises me that the company is relatively unknown, but then not everyone is cut for the racing - some people are content with driving at their own speed. there are many companies that have heavy presence in social media, great looking websites, bunch of endorsers... Aero's website is still the same as the day I first heard about them. well, they also sound the same - and, to me, this is more important than stuff two sentences back.
so... not so much of a religious experience, but - I don't want to say life-defining - definitely important to me. this DJ5 is now tied with my Stingray5 as my go-to el. bass (SR5 gets 1st place though, because I've had it for 18 years now, and the onboard preamp saved me numerous times when passive wiring would have been less than ideal). and my other basses are pretty cool too IMHO.
edited some typos...
). When I need to hear it more clearly while unplugged, I play it on my lap and rest my chin on the top of the horn.
