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Bartolini MK1 Pickups and EQ...anygood?

#82
RedVee said:
but compared to the SR300 preAmp? better? same? worse?
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Ianhin said:
They're all the same bart mk1 stuff. Its only in the real high end Corts and Ibbys that u ll find the American Bart stuff like the Mk5 pups those r good. Very good.
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RedVee said:
ok. i thought the step up from SR300 got you better pickups & preamp, as well as the wood body.
I'll have to rethink.
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Sorry to quote myself...

It seems 300 to 500 the pickups change but it is the same pre amp, 500 to 600 same pups same pre amp with an extra doohickey.
 
#87
I have an Ibanez Sr 506 that has black Nylon Tapes from La Bella, no harshness or clank, even with a pick, and a nice full deep tone. i love playing it acoustically, however the B string has a slight muddiness to, it which I don't mind
 
#90
thehangingmist said:
i never liked that pickup and preamp setup
until i found it in a cort b5 swamp ash body bass with a wenge neck that was the only time it sounded good
go figure
but i would not choose for those pickups ever
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I had a B5 and the E and B were much louder than the other 3. Also some real bad dead spots on the A string. Took it back and got a refund. Using that money to do up my entry level Gio - luthier taking out a small rise in the fretboard around the 12th fret and refretting, also raising the pups at the B string as it has no volume at all. If im still not happy im gonna put a set of Dimarzio Ultra Jazz pups. Reason ? Cant find lefty 5 ers at all in SA so getting the best out of what i got.....
 
#91
I recently traded for an SR605, a fairly recent example. It has the dreaded MK-1 pickups and preamp. All I can say about the Bart electronics in it is that if you really want some specific sound then you might need to change them to whatever it is that gives you that sound. If, however, you just ignore the TB received wisdom on this topic and listen to to the bass and play with the controls you will find that it has a broad range of very nice sounds. It doesn't sound like a Jazz or a Precision or a Musicman, it sounds like a mid range Ibanez and that is perfectly fine! I have two complaints: 1) It doesn't have a passive mode which my Reggie Hamilton Jazz has taught me to appreciate in an active bass. 2) Ibanez seems to use a dual linear fader pot instead of an MN taper blend pot so you get a large volume drop when you center the blend. I will probably address both of those with some simple mods but I don't anticipate changing either the pickups or the preamp, those parts work as well as anyone else's if you are willing to work with them. I actually regard it as a feature that they are different, why own multiple basses that all sound exactly the same? There could be good reasons for that, I suppose, but one of the big reasons why I have more than one is to get diversity.

I see that a couple of the mid range SRs now come with Nordys. In fact PJ Nordys which would make them mighty tempting to me indeed if they had put the Precision pickup in the "right" way. So, maybe Ibanez is switching over to Nordys completely in the future or maybe they are just injecting an additional level of choice into the mix by using them in certain models. Only time will tell. But if you don't like the Bart system you do now have a choice in some of the new SRs.
 
#95
I've sorta come full circle on the Lakland MK-1 setup. I have a pair of stock 44-01 and those basses seems to work just fine with the MK-1 pickups and preamp. I've grown to like the slightly rude character ...

Abut the Ibby setup... I know nuttin'...
 
#98
CraigG said:
The MK1s are decent and used in a lot of low to mid level basses. I believe I had the same configuration in my Cort Curbow 5 - though I upgraded to a Bart MK5 and Aguilar OBP3 pre shortly after buying it.

BTW, the MK1's are licensed to use the Bart name but are not actually manufactured by Bartolini (this according to an email I got from Bartolini when I tried to get some information about the MK1).
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Yes, in fact you won’t find them mentioned under the product list of the Bartolini website
 
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#99
Wow, this thread is still alive after all these years, lol... :)
So I recently picked up a used SR 500 and am not thrilled with the stock MK1 pups and electronics. Is there any new favorite replacement for the pickups these days? Most of the current higher end Ibanez SR basses come with Nordstrand pups. They appear to be direct replacements as far as the size, unlike the Bartolini soapbars on their website. Has anyone put a set of Nord Big Singles or Big Splits into a SR 500 with the stock preamp? Will that improve the sound much? I am thinking of replacing the pickups because I'm intimidated by replacing the preamp. There are a LOT of wires in there.
 
#100
I just replaced the stock preamp on my SR 905 (same configuration as the 505) with a newer Ibanez preamp (came out of a Cerro) and I'm so far very pleased with the results.
The highs are definitely less harsh, and the lows are a little bit clearer / less muddy.
I'm still experimenting, but again, so far it's definitely an improvement.

So... even though the amount of cables looks scary, I would recommend a preamp upgrade first.
 

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