Changing pickups - actual improvement or hooey?

[jdjk7]

I've seen many, MANY posts about people buying a new bass and wanting to change the pickup before even playing it. And while I will defend everyone's right to do whatever the hell they want with their money, I find it... well, I'll be polite and say, rash.

There are many people also that swear by their pickup change. Example:
"I got a p-bass and putting in the GZR made it a dream"
And I've also seen other people change pickups and get jack. Sure, it may sound different but is it really better*?
(*totally subjective, yes, hence this thread)

Personally, I honestly can't decide whether this is all just us convincing ourselves that we made the right choice or if there's a significant enough difference to really warrant the money spent.

Not saying there isn't a difference, mind you. BUT, with many of us sending the signal through a lot of tone shaping tech before it actually becomes sound, does the pickup really matter that much or does it just become a marginally significant part of the whole equation?

I've always advocated that, on an electric instrument, the pickups/electronics are the major factors that shape the tone (as opposed to body/neck/fretboard woods as well as hardware). So I'm not saying they're nothing.
What I'm asking is, have you seen that big of a difference between different pickups, AFTER going through preamps and EQ's and all that? Would you be able to effectively change something in your sound through the aforementioned (amp, EQ etc.) without changing the pickup?
I mean, how much can you screw up a pickup in a precision, for example?

And by the way, I'm mainly talking about the pickups themselves, presently. Not the circuitry involved. Which is my next point. Perhaps a change in that area (say 500k pots instead of 250k) would be enough?

Discuss.

When only the bass is considered, changing the strings and changing the pickup have the greatest effect on tone, IME.

 

[ThingsAbove]

IME, swapping single coils for humbuckers made a huge positive improvement to the output of any MIM J bass i’ve done it to, but not just any humbucker. Dimarzio Model J and Ultra J gave me more of what I was after than any other aftermarket J pickup set I tried. My second best swap was a set of $27 dollar J blades I got off ebay, and last but not least, was a set of single coil Fender CS 60’s pickups. None of the other aftermarket replacement pickups I tried really blew my dress up like those three did.
As for passive to active swaps, i’ve never tried active pickups, but I’ve tried plenty of aftermarket preamps, and to date have not found one worth keeping. They are either too harsh or try to do much, and succeed. It took endless twiddling of knobs to find a pleasing tone and once i moved off that tone it became another session of endless twiddling to find something else, but rarely did I manage to get back to the happy place I originally found, and lost. A Kubicki preamp was the only preamp I ever found that was both good sounding and easy to navigate.

Yeah I wasn't thinking of swapping humbuckers for single coils. That would make a massive difference.

All my basses have single coils. So I didn't even think about that.

 

[micahwc]

My opinion is that string changes will give you more tonal differences than anything else you can change.

 

[Bass Man Dan]

I've only changed pickups in two basses. One is a Fender American Standard P bass. Not sure what the stock pickups were, but I kept reaching to turn up the tone knob and kept finding it was already maxed. Dimarzio model Ps fixed that.

 

[TheLowDown33]

I'm in the camp that believes pickups are one of the most crucial components to the tone of a particular instrument. That being said, swapping a bunch of different P pickups that are the same construction and somewhat similar resistances will yield very little change. Humbuckers have a lot more variation simply because there are so many different construction methods. You have dual coils, dual coils with large pole pieces, stacked coils, blades, etc. I rarely swap pickups, but when I do it's because I want to get rid of single coil hum, or fix a balance issue that raising/lowering the pickups can't quite get. I tend to prefer a "split coil" humbucker ala Nordstrand Big Splits. I once swapped those in a bass that had Bartolinis (dual coil ceramic blade magnets) and there was an appreciable difference.

 

[Katoosie]

I have never switched an original pickup on a bass. When I buy one, I want it to sound good as is. I'm sure there are better and worse options but I think unless your bass is really cheap, you don't have to switch them? But then again it can be all about the tone, not just the quality.

And if you don't like it and you know some others are going to sound better, then be my guest. Just my 2 cents.

 

[fhm555]

Yeah I wasn't thinking of swapping humbuckers for single coils. That would make a massive difference.

All my basses have single coils. So I didn't even think about that.

The blades and Fender custom shop pickups were single coils and they made huge differences when using them to replace the ceramic single coils in an MIM j bass. Both had Alnico 5 magnets but other steel/rare earth magnets didn’t make the cut, so who knows.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

I've seen many, MANY posts about people buying a new bass and wanting to change the pickup before even playing it. And while I will defend everyone's right to do whatever the hell they want with their money, I find it... well, I'll be polite and say, rash.

There are many people also that swear by their pickup change. Example:
"I got a p-bass and putting in the GZR made it a dream"
And I've also seen other people change pickups and get jack. Sure, it may sound different but is it really better*?
(*totally subjective, yes, hence this thread)

Personally, I honestly can't decide whether this is all just us convincing ourselves that we made the right choice or if there's a significant enough difference to really warrant the money spent.

Not saying there isn't a difference, mind you. BUT, with many of us sending the signal through a lot of tone shaping tech before it actually becomes sound, does the pickup really matter that much or does it just become a marginally significant part of the whole equation?

I've always advocated that, on an electric instrument, the pickups/electronics are the major factors that shape the tone (as opposed to body/neck/fretboard woods as well as hardware). So I'm not saying they're nothing.
What I'm asking is, have you seen that big of a difference between different pickups, AFTER going through preamps and EQ's and all that? Would you be able to effectively change something in your sound through the aforementioned (amp, EQ etc.) without changing the pickup?
I mean, how much can you screw up a pickup in a precision, for example?

And by the way, I'm mainly talking about the pickups themselves, presently. Not the circuitry involved. Which is my next point. Perhaps a change in that area (say 500k pots instead of 250k) would be enough?

Discuss.

Pickups and strings are how you change your tone. Well, you could buy a new neck, which will either give you more bass and sustain, or more high mids and attack. But as far as straight changing your bass into a new beast, pickups and strings are what does it.

 

[Old Fart]

Pick guards have a much greater effect on tone than pickups. For blues, I use tort. Black for rock. mirror for punk. And so on.

 

[Element Zero]

Swapped out the EMG PJs for Duncan NYC Humbuckers on my Fodera and it was drastic, and the tone was MUCH better IMO.

 

[Ellery]

The only bass I swapped pickups is my Schecter Studio 5. I kept the original passive EMG-HZ pups for many years. Then I got a deal on a set of NOS EMG 40P5's, which are active and are split coil instead of humbuckers. Wow did that make a difference, it really changed the tone to my liking, sounds like a different bass. Conversely I have 5 other basses and have no desire to change their stock pickups or pres.

 

[Ellery]

When I see someone change out the pickups on a bass like Ric or a Modulus, something high-end that shouldn't need improvement, I get the impression they have a specific need or insight. But I guess it's always possible they don't.

 

[sikamikanico]

The bigger the difference in pickup design/architecture, the more pronounced the difference in sound. These days, all kinds of pickups are hiding "under the hood" , particularly in soapbars...

 

[BarfanyShart]

I wonder about changing out at least the bridge pickup in my bass. It's quite nasally, like some jazz pickups. It's not a bad sound to be able to dial in, but I imagine something more metallic and bell-like, and there is a drop-in replacement that purports to be just that. No telling what the result would be unless I tried it on my bass. I don't mod my basses as a rule, I buy the one I think sounds the best when I play it, and stick with that, but ... I don't know ...

 

[FrenchBassQC]

You try first, if first doesn't do it for you then go to the next step...

 

[Killing Floor]

Depends on the pickups! It depends on the bass and what came in it.

 

[two fingers]

Just like everything else "It depends".

My last three pickup swaps have been great.

1) Part P bass. I swapped out a cheap P bass pickup for a PAF era DiMarzio pickup. That bass came alive! It's my most aggressive P bass, but tames using the tone knob.

2) Tue very first bass I ever played is a 84-87 MIJ Fender P bass. I love the chunky neck. The bass has a soft spot in my heart. I loved everything about except the tone. Swapped out the factory pickup for an EMG Geezer and BOOM! Traditional P bass tone for days.

3) LeCompte XTSS had the most boring electronics I've ever hear. I had @rojo412 swap out the active pre and pickups and install a brilliant passive setup (really he did a superb job) and some Nordstrand pickups. Now that bass sings. It's ridiculously versatile as well.

 

[micguy]

Changing the pickups is about the most significant thing you can do to change the tone, sound and character of a bass.

Sometimes this is correct, but a lot of time it's not. Most P pickups (for example; the principles apply elsewhere) are wound with the same magnets, wire gauge, and geometry - if you swap one "vintage-ish" P pickup for another, the change is likely to be insignificant - something you couldn't pick out in a blind test.

If you rewire a P (or other 2 coil) pickup to parallel connection, that will have a FAR more significant tonal change than changing to another pickup of the same type. Changing the loading on a parallel wired pickup (a capacitor) also has a far greater potential change on the sound of a bass than a pickup change, and unlike a pickup change, it's not a complete crapshoot - you know going in what direction the change will be with a different capacitor. It's also a 40 cent experiment, not a hundred dollar one.

One last thing - changing the type of strings (stainless rounds, nickel rounds, pressure wounds, flats) you use on a bass will almost always make a bigger difference to the sound and feel of a bass than a pickup swap.

 

[Pings Bass]

I've been playing since the 80s and only once have i changed pickups. I put EMG PJs in my MiJ jazz bass special fretless after playing it a couple years. To my ear the stock pups sounded like trash and the EMGs sound better.

Other than that, I've never bothered. Tone is in the fingers, man.

 

[singlemalt]

I’ve had a few basses I was on the fence about keeping. Loved everything about them, except the sound. Changing pickups turned them into keepers. But there’s a few steps before I throw down cash on a whole new pickup.

Even small changes like changing the wiring of a four lead pickup from parallel to series can totally change the sound. If you wanted to get fancy, you could add a switch and have both options. Or two switches one for each pickup.


Strings and set up first, that’s the Big Bang for the bucks move. Then messing around with the electronics that are already there. What’s a tone pot and a cap cost? A few bucks and half an hour of messing around?

It’s not rocket surgery. Careful not to burn your fingers on the soldering iron.

If this doesn’t get me there, I’ll put in some kind of P sounding pickup, at least in the neck position. There’s some great sounding pickups out there.