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Are Nordstrands really worth it?

#21
KJung said:
1) Yes... but no more than Seymour, Aero, etc. Very nice pickups with their own tone profile that many like.

2) You will notice a difference (a bit warmer, a bit smoother, a bit fatter, a bit less aggressive than what most consider a classic Fender tone). If you like the difference, you will hear it as an improvement:smug:

3) The Audere is pretty subtle and will not 'cover up' the tone of a given pickup, so IMO that's a moot point.
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+1

Gotta agree with KJung - they are a damn fine set of pickups, but a lot of manufacturers have great sounding sets of pickups too. The NJ5F's I had paired with an Audere had a very nice growl - a very warm growl in the lower frequencies, not a 70-ish aggressive jazz, upper mid growl, but very nice just the same. Also had excellent note clarity as others have stated.
 
#23
brandau said:
You sound like a candidate for some Frailins. The tone you describe is what I like as well. Check out "Papers In Order" here Link Removed 75 Jazz w/ frailins thru a 64 Bassman
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Wow that's a killer tone! I was under the impression that the Fralins had a lot of high-mids, and consequently were agressive, thin, bright, and raw sounding. But damn, that's the last thing I would say about that tone! Do you know what kind of strings?
 
#25
I love my Nordstrand NJ4SEs on my Jazz with a J-Retro pre. Great combination, extremely versatile. There's lots of great pickups out there and it's all down to personal preference, but if you like the sound of the Nordies, then go for it.

I also have a set of NJ4SVs that are due to go on to my Geddy Jazz bass at some stage, still haven't got round to fixing this up.
 
#26
Hyssar said:
Of course, they're worth it, but it's maybe not the sound you are looking for.

Listen to the sound clips of the following pickups (they all sound metallic because of the DR Hi-Beam strings, but there's still a big difference between each pickup) recorded by David Wilson with a Geddy Lee Jazz Bass :

Villex
Dimarzio J
Dimarzio Ultra Jazz
EMG JV
Nord 4JSE
Aero single coil
Sadowsky hum cancelling
Bartolini 9J
Bartolini 9 Classic Bass
SD Antiquity II single coil


http://pickups.dmw.ftml.net
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man, no offense to the op but i'll take the sadoskys hands down!!!!
 
#35
LightGroove said:
So which pickup Nord or not nails the 70's upper mid snarl? Looking for this tone myself and leaning toward the NJ4SV's
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a humcancelling set will never get you that imo. im curious as to an 70's upper mid snarl being attributed to the pickups though. that description sounds more like the wood the pickups are in. if you take your average 70's jazz bass and take a look at the pickups, you are going to have a set with plain enamel wire wound to about 7.5k for both pickups. thats not exactly hot and wouldnt be something id look to for grind. however, that would be an accurate sound of a 70's jazz bass and what is what i personally prefer.
 
#36
narud said:
a humcancelling set will never get you that imo. im curious as to an 70's upper mid snarl being attributed to the pickups though. that description sounds more like the wood the pickups are in. if you take your average 70's jazz bass and take a look at the pickups, you are going to have a set with plain enamel wire wound to about 7.5k for both pickups. thats not exactly hot and wouldnt be something id look to for grind. however, that would be an accurate sound of a 70's jazz bass and what is what i personally prefer.
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It all works together:smug: I never particularly associated the 'hotness' of the output level of pickups with 'grind', etc. To my ear, it's more the voicing of the pickup, and the ratio of the upper mids to the low end.

+1 on the HC comment all the way. The only HC that came even close was the Armstrong split coils wound specially for the Celinder basses, but they still weren't the same as true singles IMO and IME. Pretty darn close though!
 
#37
KJung said:
It all works together:smug: I never particularly associated the 'hotness' of the output level of pickups with 'grind', etc. To my ear, it's more the voicing of the pickup, and the ratio of the upper mids to the low end.
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after trying nearly every single coil out there in the same bass, considering how little the variables can be changed, ive found the resistance ratings a pretty good measure of what the pickup is going to sound like. theres only so many ways you can change a pickup with alnico 5 poles and heavy formvar wire which is what most of the replacements are. except for aeros which are taller, most are subtle variations on the same design. most of them didnt sound that different.

but it does work together and thats my point. i dont really think there is a magic 70s snarl pickup. a set of aeros wont transform a 1960 stack knob into something else completely imo.
 
#38
narud said:
after trying nearly every single coil out there in the same bass, considering how little the variables can be changed, ive found the resistance ratings a pretty good measure of what the pickup is going to sound like. theres only so many ways you can change a pickup with alnico 5 poles and heavy formvar wire which is what most of the replacements are. except for aeros which are taller, most are subtle variations on the same design. most of them didnt sound that different.

but it does work together and thats my point. i dont really think there is a magic 70s snarl pickup. a set of aeros wont transform a 1960 stack knob into something else completely imo.
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+1 Things interact so much that sometimes we all get a bit tied up in our shorts over this stuff. The age and type of string has more impact on tonal differences many times than anything else, and as we've discussed before, I've never heard two basses sound exactly alike, even when they are spec'd virtually identically.

Interestingly, the Aero singles on my 60's position alder body DJ sounded more like what many people describe as a 70's tone than many ash bodies 70's pickup position basses! It still amazes me at how much variation and interaction there is in all this stuff associated with the bass itself.

That's one of the reasons I post primarily in the amps section. The cool thing about an amp, is once you describe the tone, it's constant across 1000 units. With a darn bass, there's so much variation within lines of instruments (Fenders, Alleva's, Fodera's, whatever) that it's hard to even talk about!
 

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