Club Sadowsky!!!

[Vic]

However, it sounded virtually nothing like a Fender J, still sounded like a Sadowsky (nothing wrong with that).

FWIW, I've always felt you were way too strongly worded on this topic. I definitely agree a Sadowsky doesn't sound the same as a Fender, but to suggest they literally have essentially nothing in common is a bit much. IMHO, all J style basses have a lot in common... even if they at the same time have significant differences.

IMHO/IME/....

 

[KJung]

FWIW, I've always felt you were way too strongly worded on this topic. I definitely agree a Sadowsky doesn't sound the same as a Fender, but to suggest they literally have essentially nothing in common is a bit much. IMHO, all J style basses have a lot in common... even if they at the same time have significant differences.

IMHO/IME/....

IMO, not very Fendery at all from my many A/B's with various true J's (this was my point, not that it doesn't sound like a 'J bass' type spec at all).

This is not a good thing nor a bad thing. +1 though, that it is definitely one of the many, many, many flavors of the general 'J bass' descriptor. I actually prefer this 'flavor' of J over any Fender J I've ever played!

 

[bass12]

I've found that, even in passive mode, the Sadowsky preamp has quite an impact on the sound of the bass. Even when in passive mode a Sadowsky preamp-equipped bass sounds like a Sadowsky to me.

 

[Doug Parent]

All Sadowsky NYC and Metro basses have some commonalities.
The sheer volume of wood used in shaping the bass, it's dryness, selection of wood are going to play into the final result tone wise, as well as the fact that just about any "J" style pickup sounds more Sadowsky-like when installed on his based running through his pre-amp. I find his pre-amp being the major factor contributing to the signature tone.

 

[Doug Parent]

Question for Ken and Doug: if the HC's are more scooped, then why do the upper harmonics ring out so much more clearly on the SC's (which has been my experience)? That seems counter intuitive.

Personally my auditory perception tells me I'm hearing more upper midrange content in a single coil pickup. Two coils in parallel will hum cancel but there are some frequencies that are going to get cancelled out as well in the process.

For example witness the upper midrange and high treble frequencies that start to manifest when you start to roll the bridge pickup off gradually favoring the neck pickup.

Obviously the goal with any stacked or side by side coil arrangement is to approach the sound of a single coil, and the windings and design for each individual coil that will be in parallel with another coil (under the same pickup shell) will have be voiced accordingly to achieve that result. I think I recall chatting with Roger over the phone some years ago about this very thing. There is no free lunch, with HC you are going to give up something.

 

[KJung]

Question for Ken and Doug: if the HC's are more scooped, then why do the upper harmonics ring out so much more clearly on the SC's (which has been my experience)? That seems counter intuitive.

+1 to Doug's post. Harmonics are ALL about the upper midrange. The shift of the treble range down a bit with the SC's from the HC's makes those harmonics jump out a bit more, and gives you a bit more traditional 'J grind' versus the bit more hi fi treble response of the HC's.

 

[KJung]

I've found that, even in passive mode, the Sadowsky preamp has quite an impact on the sound of the bass. Even when in passive mode a Sadowsky preamp-equipped bass sounds like a Sadowsky to me.

IMO, that is not due to the preamp (bypass is bypass... no impact), but rather (I believe) due to Roger's voicing of his pickups to work optimally with the preamp (I assume some sort of underwinding or whatever). That is why Roger (based on a number of posts through the years) views his preamp bypass as more of a 'safety' feature than a tonal option.

It is another reason why Sadowksy's sound like they do, and don't move much toward a classic Fender passive tonality in passive mode IMO and IME.

 

[Doug Parent]

+1 to Doug's post. Harmonics are ALL about the upper midrange. The shift of the treble range down a bit with the SC's from the HC's makes those harmonics jump out a bit more, and gives you a bit more traditional 'J grind' versus the bit more hi fi treble response of the HC's.

So true. I just installed a set of Nordy single coils in a bass and compared them to a set of Fenders 2004 Samarium Cobalt stacked coil pickups.

The Fenders have a big warm low end with a crystal clear high end thats way the hell up there probably in the 6khz region. The upper mids aren't even represented in those pickups. Just a function of it's design.

The Nordys have all this upper midrange snarl that cuts through like a sword, it's just a thing of beauty and so VERY 60's Fender like. A little rude, a little raw and just a thing of beauty. No wonder Roger uses them in his basses.

edit: by the way…totally passive. The output is THERE and the tone is there, no need for a pre-amp to suck any freq's!

 

[Doug Parent]

IMO, that is not due to the preamp (bypass is bypass... no impact), but rather (I believe) due to Roger's voicing of his pickups to work optimally with the preamp (I assume some sort of underwinding or whatever). That is why Roger (based on a number of posts through the years) views his preamp bypass as more of a 'safety' feature than a tonal option.

It is another reason why Sadowksy's sound like they do, and don't move much toward a classic Fender passive tonality in passive mode IMO and IME.

I agree but I also think the preamp gives a slight boost at 4khz and a bump at 40hz when set flat before any boosting is done. You can hear it when you engage the preamp from passive mode. It instantly imparts a slight "scoop". Gets slightly warmer and brighter.

I actually did this comparison yesterday at Bass San Diego (who always has a great selection of Sadowsky and Bergantino gear in stock, just call Chris or George!)
with a MV5. passive/active. click click, back and forth.

But your point is well taken because the stock Nordstrand single coils that I installed on a mV5 were from Nordstrand, Not from the Sadowsky shop. I have no doubt Roger has his own thing going on, because the bass I worked on sounded much more 60's Fenderish to my ear.

 

[pickles]

I agree but I also think the preamp gives a slight boost at 4khz and a bump at 40hz when set flat before any boosting is done. You can hear it when you engage the preamp from passive mode. It instantly imparts a slight "scoop". Gets slightly warmer and brighter.

I actually did this comparison yesterday at Bass San Diego (who always has a great selection of Sadowsky and Bergantino gear in stock, just call Chris or George!)
with a MV5. passive/active. click click, back and forth.

But your point is well taken because the stock Nordstrand single coils that I installed on a mV5 were from Nordstrand, Not from the Sadowsky shop. I have no doubt Roger has his own thing going on, because the bass I worked on sounded much more 60's Fenderish to my ear.

Thats just the effect of buffering, you remove the effects of your cable run.

 

[KJung]

I agree but I also think the preamp gives a slight boost at 4khz and a bump at 40hz when set flat before any boosting is done. You can hear it when you engage the preamp from passive mode. It instantly imparts a slight "scoop". Gets slightly warmer and brighter.

I actually did this comparison yesterday at Bass San Diego (who always has a great selection of Sadowsky and Bergantino gear in stock, just call Chris or George!)
with a MV5. passive/active. click click, back and forth.

But your point is well taken because the stock Nordstrand single coils that I installed on a mV5 were from Nordstrand, Not from the Sadowsky shop. I have no doubt Roger has his own thing going on, because the bass I worked on sounded much more 60's Fenderish to my ear.

That is a bit of different issue. Yes, the pre is definitely not 'flat' when set neutral, and also has a gain increase. Per Pickle's comment, +1 that the simple effect of buffering will slightly widen the low end and expand the upper treble, even without any EQ baked in at all.

All good stuff Fantastic basses. I actually dig the fact that Roger voices his pickups to optimally work with his OEM preamp.... that is one of the things you are paying for with the Sadowsky brand, versus just dropping in stock Seymours and an OB3 or whatever. Not that the off the shelf stuff can't sound great, but I do like the integrated sort of build to achieve the 'sound in Roger's head'.

 

[AMJBASS]

IMO, that is not due to the preamp (bypass is bypass... no impact), but rather (I believe) due to Roger's voicing of his pickups to work optimally with the preamp (I assume some sort of underwinding or whatever). That is why Roger (based on a number of posts through the years) views his preamp bypass as more of a 'safety' feature than a tonal option.

+1 This is what I am hearing as well. Personally I don't like the passive sound as its a bit anemic. I am glad that option is there of course as a back up.

My RV5-WL is off to its first gig today(Jazz/light R&B corporate). Looking forward to hearing it live!

 

[Doug Parent]

Thats just the effect of buffering, you remove the effects of your cable run.

Interesting I didn't take that into account. I think I'll toss an NTMB in my passive bass and see how it sounds flat.

 

[bucephylus]

Personally my auditory perception tells me I'm hearing more upper midrange content in a single coil pickup. Two coils in parallel will hum cancel but there are some frequencies that are going to get cancelled out as well in the process.

For example witness the upper midrange and high treble frequencies that start to manifest when you start to roll the bridge pickup off gradually favoring the neck pickup.

Obviously the goal with any stacked or side by side coil arrangement is to approach the sound of a single coil, and the windings and design for each individual coil that will be in parallel with another coil (under the same pickup shell) will have be voiced accordingly to achieve that result. I think I recall chatting with Roger over the phone some years ago about this very thing. There is no free lunch, with HC you are going to give up something.

Thanks Doug.

Not intending to be argumentative, but for sake of discussion:
I didn't get your point about increase in upper mids & treble coming more into play as the bridge pup is rolled off. My experience has been the opposite, in that I get way more upper harmonics by rolling off the neck pup. Maybe I am missing something.

Also, all this talk about voicing pickups: I seriously question how much really goes into that. One of my early R&D jobs was performing AC impedance spectroscopy on polymers; and during that time I happened to have some adventures with my pawn shop '62 Jazz which had an open circuit bridge pickup when acquired. So, I spent quite a lot of time looking at the impedance spectral characteristics of that pickup and its neck counterpart. I also looked at a bunch of early '70's pups and '62 RI pups I had at the time. The impedance characteristics were all over the place and nothing was remotely close to the '62 actual winds. The thing is the impedance of the wind is a function of so many variables including wire resistance (hard to control from a supply chain perspective), number of winds, and winding tension, that getting any kind of voicing algorithm would seem to me to be pretty difficult.

I remember Leo having a jig that he could put various prototypes into. That would seem to me to be the only way to do it; and gosh it sure would be time consuming. And then, you would have to have guys like you or Ken sitting around discriminating between the various winds. I suspect the folks actually making these things settle on some number of winds and tension as being good enough and then the folks buying the pups pick the ones that actually do the best job. If you call that "voicing," then OK.

As to my initial question, I suspect you are correct that the HC's are a bit more high sizzle, but that the upper bass harmonics are somewhere below that frequency range. Because I too hear the sizzle, but do not get the upper harmonics. However, I am pretty sure that the upper harmonic content has a lot of amplitude in the 1kHz to 4kHz range, simply because I can also get more of it with cabs having tweeters and decent crossovers.

Anyhow, its an interesting question to me, if a bit academic.

 

[Doug Parent]

Thanks Doug.

Not intending to be argumentative, but for sake of discussion:
I didn't get your point about increase in upper mids & treble coming more into play as the bridge pup is rolled off. My experience has been the opposite, in that I get way more upper harmonics by rolling off the neck pup. Maybe I am missing something.

Also, all this talk about voicing pickups: I seriously question how much really goes into that. One of my early R&D jobs was performing AC impedance spectroscopy on polymers; and during that time I happened to have some adventures with my pawn shop '62 Jazz which had an open circuit bridge pickup when acquired. So, I spent quite a lot of time looking at the impedance spectral characteristics of that pickup and its neck counterpart. I also looked at a bunch of early '70's pups and '62 RI pups I had at the time. The impedance characteristics were all over the place and nothing was remotely close to the '62 actual winds. The thing is the impedance of the wind is a function of so many variables including wire resistance (hard to control from a supply chain perspective), number of winds, and winding tension, that getting any kind of voicing algorithm would seem to me to be pretty difficult.

I remember Leo having a jig that he could put various prototypes into. That would seem to me to be the only way to do it; and gosh it sure would be time consuming. And then, you would have to have guys like you or Ken sitting around discriminating between the various winds. I suspect the folks actually making these things settle on some number of winds and tension as being good enough and then the folks buying the pups pick the ones that actually do the best job. If you call that "voicing," then OK.

As to my initial question, I suspect you are correct that the HC's are a bit more high sizzle, but that the upper bass harmonics are somewhere below that frequency range. Because I too hear the sizzle, but do not get the upper harmonics. However, I am pretty sure that the upper harmonic content has a lot of amplitude in the 1kHz to 4kHz range, simply because I can also get more of it with cabs having tweeters and decent crossovers.

Anyhow, its an interesting question to me, if a bit academic.

I agree and, I also suspect that the "high end sizzle" that the HC claim to have also appears that way as a result of having LESS of the upper midrange content, and then factor in the boost at 4 kHz that the pre-amp imparts an apparency there is more high end sizzle. I'll go ahead and stir the pot here and postulate that there is probably no more extended high end range in the HC pickups then there are with the Sc pickups. It's just the 1khz-3khz content in the singles is more prominent which tends to obscure the higher freq's above 3khz.

You can accomplish a lot by using subtractive Eq'ing and tone shaping. For example, attenuate 120hz-180hz on a graphic EQ, turn up the overall signal to compensate and your ear says you just boosted the very lows and the very highs. The HC pickups are scooped in the upper mids, so the highs that are there seem more prominent than single coils. My earlier example using the Fender SCN pickups is another example of design imparting it's own resulting tone.

 

[KJung]

Thanks Doug.

Not intending to be argumentative, but for sake of discussion:
I didn't get your point about increase in upper mids & treble coming more into play as the bridge pup is rolled off. My experience has been the opposite, in that I get way more upper harmonics by rolling off the neck pup. Maybe I am missing something.

Also, all this talk about voicing pickups: I seriously question how much really goes into that. One of my early R&D jobs was performing AC impedance spectroscopy on polymers; and during that time I happened to have some adventures with my pawn shop '62 Jazz which had an open circuit bridge pickup when acquired. So, I spent quite a lot of time looking at the impedance spectral characteristics of that pickup and its neck counterpart. I also looked at a bunch of early '70's pups and '62 RI pups I had at the time. The impedance characteristics were all over the place and nothing was remotely close to the '62 actual winds. The thing is the impedance of the wind is a function of so many variables including wire resistance (hard to control from a supply chain perspective), number of winds, and winding tension, that getting any kind of voicing algorithm would seem to me to be pretty difficult.

I remember Leo having a jig that he could put various prototypes into. That would seem to me to be the only way to do it; and gosh it sure would be time consuming. And then, you would have to have guys like you or Ken sitting around discriminating between the various winds. I suspect the folks actually making these things settle on some number of winds and tension as being good enough and then the folks buying the pups pick the ones that actually do the best job. If you call that "voicing," then OK.

As to my initial question, I suspect you are correct that the HC's are a bit more high sizzle, but that the upper bass harmonics are somewhere below that frequency range. Because I too hear the sizzle, but do not get the upper harmonics. However, I am pretty sure that the upper harmonic content has a lot of amplitude in the 1kHz to 4kHz range, simply because I can also get more of it with cabs having tweeters and decent crossovers.

Anyhow, its an interesting question to me, if a bit academic.

All I know is when I swapped the Sadowsky HC's for Sadowsky singles (some OEM variant of the Duncan Antiquity II's at the time I think... can't remember what Roger was using then), there was a massive change in tonality (for the better for me).... less deep lows, more low midrange, much more upper midrange, and a less apparent upper treble response. Again, not a 'better or worse' thing, but definitely different.

 

[bucephylus]

I agree and, I also suspect that the "high end sizzle" that the HC claim to have also appears that way as a result of having LESS of the upper midrange content, and then factor in the boost at 4 kHz that the pre-amp imparts an apparency there is more high end sizzle. I'll go ahead and stir the pot here and postulate that there is probably no more extended high end range in the HC pickups then there are with the Sc pickups. It's just the 1khz-3khz content in the singles is more prominent which tends to obscure the higher freq's above 3khz.

You can accomplish a lot by using subtractive Eq'ing and tone shaping. For example, attenuate 120hz-180hz on a graphic EQ, turn up the overall signal to compensate and your ear says you just boosted the very lows and the very highs. The HC pickups are scooped in the upper mids, so the highs that are there seem more prominent than single coils. My earlier example using the Fender SCN pickups is another example of design imparting it's own resulting tone.

+1 That makes a lot of sense.

 

[bucephylus]

All I know is when I swapped the Sadowsky HC's for Sadowsky singles (some OEM variant of the Duncan Antiquity II's at the time I think... can't remember what Roger was using then), there was a massive change in tonality (for the better for me).... less deep lows, more low midrange, much more upper midrange, and a less apparent upper treble response. Again, not a 'better or worse' thing, but definitely different.

I assume you mean the HC's on the 5's. And I agree with your preference; which is why I had Roger put SC's in my RV5 while I was playing it. I don't find the HC's on the 4 to be so much of a problem. Still apparent, but much closer to what I am looking for.

 

[KJung]

I assume you mean the HC's on the 5's. And I agree with your preference; which is why I had Roger put SC's in my RV5 while I was playing it. I don't find the HC's on the 4 to be so much of a problem. Still apparent, but much closer to what I am looking for.

+1 Seems yet another dynamic going on with the 4 string pickups. Interesting stuff. Love the ash/maple/60's position/Sadowsky single coil thing... unique J tone that is unlike any other. RV5 with the Morado board is actually quite close also.

If I ever get the 'J' bug again (I seem to shift tonal goals pretty significantly every decade or so (I'm only 3 years or so into the 'passive P era'! ), that NYC ash/maple/single's in 60's position would be what I'd go back to for sure. Wonderful spec!

 

[bucephylus]

+1 Seems yet another dynamic going on with the 4 string pickups. Interesting stuff. Love the ash/maple/60's position/Sadowsky single coil thing... unique J tone that is unlike any other. RV5 with the Morado board is actually quite close also.

If I ever get the 'J' bug again (I seem to shift tonal goals pretty significantly every decade or so (I'm only 3 years or so into the 'passive P era'! ), that NYC ash/maple/single's in 60's position would be what I'd go back to for sure. Wonderful spec!

Orange Bomber v2 (w/60's position)