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Club Decade!

#941
I've just learned of this thread, so will read up on it over the next few days.

Inn the meantime, I posted this in the overall Lakland Owners thread, reposting here to ask:

Has anyone replaced their pickups on their Decade without having to make any adjustments to the existing body routings?

Am wondering which pickups would fit without modifications and that would not have any spaces. I have the standard Skyline model.

If anyone's done this, would really like to see pics.


Cheers @GregC

Lakland Owners Group #69
 
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#943
Same here but I have a standard Skyline that is passive. You're talking strings but I'm talking pickups. I use Rotos on mine. I can get a couple of good sounds out of it but it's a bit of Alchemy getting the right combination of each pickup volume or else it sounds very nasal.

Month's later from my last post on this and I still want to change the pickups, I have yet to find anything that fits.
 
#944
I’m not just talking strings. With the LH3 preamp I’m dealing with a three band preamp, the blend knob plus midrange dip switches.
I tried it with the drummerless regular jam I have again this weekend. Tiny adjustments make pretty large changes. I’d noticed this weekend that even small shifts in hand placement has a big affect on the tone in the mix as well . I’d love to know what other folks are doing.
Maybe I need to stop trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and stop thinking about it as a weird nonFender and think of it instead as a nonGibson.
 
#946
Guy Tensen said:
I’m not just talking strings. With the LH3 preamp I’m dealing with a three band preamp, the blend knob plus midrange dip switches.
I tried it with the drummerless regular jam I have again this weekend. Tiny adjustments make pretty large changes. I’d noticed this weekend that even small shifts in hand placement has a big affect on the tone in the mix as well . I’d love to know what other folks are doing.
Maybe I need to stop trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and stop thinking about it as a weird nonFender and think of it instead as a nonGibson.
Click to expand...

After trying roundwounds, tapes and labella 760FM I've settled on a current setup that works for me.

Strings: Labella 760FL

Mid switch: factory setting of (I believe) 1000, not sure since I don't use it often.

Modification: I added a switch for active passive, and use the volume push/pull as a mute.

I bought a small pot, and have treble as "set it and forget it" in the control cavity, in it's place I've wired a passive tone control.

I've had great success with this set up, as I rarely find the need to adjust the highs, and I can get interesting sounds when boosting mids and cutting the tone.
I did two days in the studio, and found it to sound best passive with single coil mode, for one tune I used the other mode (series coils? No idea, the loud mode).

I find both the passive and active modes to be useful live, and I will henceforth add a passive tone control to any active bass.
I do find that playing the bass on it's own, the LH3 slightly scoops the sound, and that the bass sounds richer in passive. I've had the same issue with my HB34 (I added a preamp) and my active 55AJ. Maybe the Lakland pickups don't work well with pres, or maybe the two Noll and one LH3 simply lose some of the organic sound of the basses pickups.
At any rate, being able to switch active/passive, and to have a passive tone control makes all three basses excellent for live and studio work, as well as for pick and finger playing.

Hopefully all my ramblings helps someone out.
 
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#947
Btbp said:
Same here but I have a standard Skyline that is passive. You're talking strings but I'm talking pickups. I use Rotos on mine. I can get a couple of good sounds out of it but it's a bit of Alchemy getting the right combination of each pickup volume or else it sounds very nasal.

Month's later from my last post on this and I still want to change the pickups, I have yet to find anything that fits.
Click to expand...

I would not change the pickups if I were in your place, I have the chi-sonics on a decade and hollow body, I've found adding a 2 band pre with active/passive options really brought the HB34 to life, and the preamp in my decade gives me a ton of flexibility. Plus my decade has the coil tap option, but even without it a pre and the right strings make the bass seriously kick ass.

I initially got my decade to be the roundwounds counterpart to my US P with flats, but I've found it to sound better wearing the same strings (La bella 760fl) and that both basses sound very different.

I will say this! It actually sounded the best with tape wounds, but the low tension of the labella white tapes made setting it up impossible, so I'd also try heavier gauge labella tapes, since they are quite bright.
 
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#948
Here it is with the added active/passive switch, with volume push/pull as mute.
PXL_20210807_134512142.jpg
 
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#951
That's nice, after playing this thing for, not sure, about 15 years, I'm keen to see how it works with different pickups, ideally Bartolinis although none fit.

One that might is the Artec Mudbucker though from the name of it that's not what kind of sound I'm going for.

I do want to get a dedicated P Bass to put one of those Mudbuckers up by the neck Berry Oakley style.

It may come down to have custom bezels made to accommodate Bartolinis without any drilling.
 
#952
Btbp said:
That's nice, after playing this thing for, not sure, about 15 years, I'm keen to see how it works with different pickups, ideally Bartolinis although none fit.

One that might is the Artec Mudbucker though from the name of it that's not what kind of sound I'm going for.

I do want to get a dedicated P Bass to put one of those Mudbuckers up by the neck Berry Oakley style.

It may come down to have custom bezels made to accommodate Bartolinis without any drilling.
Click to expand...
I don't know man, chi sonics are highly rated, seems like a lot of work and money in a situation where you could change the sound via strings and preamp. On the other hand, you could easily sell the chis, they're sought after.
 
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#953
I just don't care for their sound, and they are hard to dial in. Having said that this week I played that bass a few times for the first time in months, and I landed on a once-in-a-year combination of knob settings that sounded good, they are very sensitive and co-dependent.

I've been playing only Rotos for 40 years except the La Bellas on my flatwound bass, I like the sound and feel of Rotos better than any others I've tried, and I tried many. I do like the sound of Bartolinis. A preamp is an idea but most of my basses are passive, which I prefer. I would keep the stock pickups if I did replace them, gear is usually worth more with the stock kit.

More info than some may want so feel free to pass on this -
There are a couple other things I don't like about the stock pickups which I've posted somewhere else - the bezels are plastic, and I actually dug into one by playing aggressively, which created a sharp burr that gave me a nasty cut. I had to file down the bezel to get rid of it but it doesn't look as nice now as a result. As they're integrated with the actual pickups you can't replace just the damaged bezel. The other thing I don't care for is the size, hard angles and shape of these pickups, which make slapping way more difficult and painful than any other bass I've played, the overall footprint is too big for my liking.

I'm going to ask a couple of luthiers I know for ideas about a custom bezel that would accommodate Bartolinis or similar pickups, maybe something around the size of the EMGs that go on Steinbergers, which look slightly smaller.
 

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