Anyone swapped the pickup on Fender active Fleabass?

[TheKillersFan]

Hi all,

Has anyone had any luck swapping the pickup on the Fender Flea Artist Series Signature Active Jazz bass without having to make the pickup cavity any bigger?

While I love the bass, I’ve been interested in swapping the stock pickup for a while. Ideally I’d do the LP legacy, but it’s proven difficult to order one. Instead, I’ve finally decided on the Delano MC 4AL, but from looking at the size diagram, it looks like the sizing is slightly off from the stock pickup (width of 1.91 in on the Delano vs ~1.88 in on the stock).

I decided to look at the sizes of other after-market pickups that are supposed to be drop-in replacements for Music Man stingrays (e.go Aguilar, Seymour Duncan) and noticed that those sizes are inconsistent with one another.

At this point, I’d be skeptical about swapping with any other pickup. While I’d love the Delano, I don’t want to make any irreversible changes to the bass.

 

[eastcoasteddie]

I highly doubt 0.03” would make much difference in the fit of a different pickup in the cavity. I wouldn’t worry about it.

 

[Skullie]

I recently replaced the stock Fender pickup with a Seymour Duncan SMB-4A Alnico Musicman pickup. The pickup dropped right in and wired up with no issues. I'm much happier with the Duncan pickup, the tone is clearer, more balanced and less harsh. It's still a loud bass but the preamp seems to work better with the new pickup.