Bridge pup that stands alone

[kaiuk]

So im building a bass and trying to decide what pickups i should slap in it. I have decided i think i want a P in the neck position, but i want to have some versatility left in the bass. I was wondering if there are any pickups that would give me a full and complete tone from the bridge position. my intent would be to have an on/off switch for the P switch so that i could turn it off and use my other pickup by itself. I want to get a tone that would be different from the P (perhaps more like a J) and would prefer a very clean modern tone if i could. Is it even possible to get that kind of tone out of a bridge pickup?

sorry about the block 'o text.
TL;DR version: good standalone bridge pup?

 

[danomite64]

Musicman, perhaps.

 

[NKBassman]

Musicman, perhaps.

That was going to be my suggestion as well.

 

[pbgonecrazy99]

I have never really heard a p/mm setup. Kind of interested in hearing what that would sound like.

 

[tubby.twins]

If you choose a quad-coil MusicMan pickup, you can select either of the two halves of the pickup, for different Jazz-like tones, or select both halves together for a fatter, MusicMan-like sound.

Combine this with a P-pickup at the neck position and you get lots of tonal options.

 

[kaiuk]

so ive never been a huge fan of the MM sound. would a quad coil allow me to get some other non MM tones from the beast? also could i coil tap it?

 

[Tommorichards]

This gets me a lot of sounds.

 

[NKBassman]

I'm assuming the Super Switch is something like Series/Parallel/Single Coil?

 

[Nedmundo]

I'd go for a G&L MFD humbucker for maximum clarity and power, even run passive. You can order them on line from glguitars.com. Of course, then you'd want the G&L MFD split-coil for your P pickup. (And you do want one; you just might not realize it yet! ) Those aren't on G&L's site, but I believe you can order them through any G&L dealer.

 

[Tommorichards]

I'm assuming the Super Switch is something like Series/Parallel/Single Coil?

Series humbucker
north coil
parallel
south coil
parallel, out of phase.


I also recently wired the on/off switches for the pups into a parallel/series dealio too. So humbucker with parallel out of phase, in series with the P gives quite a zing