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Diy Passive Stu Hamm Urge II?

z6e9n

z6e9n

Feb 10, 2008
40
0
Indiana
#1
I have searched all over this forum and couldn't find an answer to this question. Has anyone taken a Jazz bass and slapped a p pickup in between the two J's?
What did it sound like?
I have a cheap SX that I am thinking about doing this with. It will be v/v/v as far as wiring goes. Any thoughts?
 
#2
Might be too tough to answer since it's so subjective, and the question might be more complex than it seems. Do you want to know how the P by itself will sound (that is, are you asking if it will be in an optimal location); how it will sound blended with the others; etc. The final result will be heavily affected by the quality of the pickups themselves.

Hopefully you'll find someone who's tried it. If not, consider trying this:

get a really really cheap J body (or any bass body with a fender style neck pocket). rout it to hold all 3 pups, and then transfer your parts over there to experiment with the tones. I'm guessing you'll have to rout partly under the pickguard and partly out of the pickguard -- so it's a permanent mod, for all intents and purposes. So you might be happier chopping up a throwaway body first before you alter your main bass. PLUS, you could do a complete open rout, and then play around with the positioning of the P...who knows, you might decide to nudge one of the Js as well -- with a scrap body, you can experiment a bit, and not only decide how you like the tone, but exactly where you want the pups too.
 
#3
I did it the other way. I took a '75 P and put two Duncan QuarterPounder Jazz pups on it.

fenderfront.jpg


Stack vol/tone rings. Master kill switch.
modded in '80. Sounds great!
 
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#6
z6e9n said:
I have searched all over this forum and couldn't find an answer to this question. Has anyone taken a Jazz bass and slapped a p pickup in between the two J's?
What did it sound like?
I have a cheap SX that I am thinking about doing this with. It will be v/v/v as far as wiring goes. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

i took the pickups and electronics out of my urge. i replaced the pickups with passive bartolinis. it is wired v/v/v, no tone. the bridge pickup can be routed to the main or an auxiliary output. it does provide 3 distinct tones: the pickups don't seem to blend well, but do give the variety of tone that different pickup placement provides. hth, regards, ron
 
#7
Thanks for all your advice! Thanks Paul for moving the thread! Unfortunately the P is not going to be placed optimally. So the P might be on the trebly side due to it be closer to the bridge. Still I should get a number of new tonal possibilities. So I am definately planning on doing this mod. I will let you guys know what happens with the JPJ(DIY Urge bass). I need to see how much it is going to cost me to have the bass routed. I plan on using a Wilkinson 5 string P pickup($28 on ebay). Even if it sounds like crap it will still look pretty cool. I might even throw in a 3 way tone switch(no pot just Bypass, .022, .047)

This got me wondering why don't more basses come with 3 pickups? Why not put a MM pickup between the p and j of a pj bass. Any thoughts?
 
#9
Well I am trying to keep the cost down. It is an SX after all. I have already switched out the electronics(2-500k cts pots, 1 allparts push/pull pot, and a switchcraft jack), put on fender knobs, swapped out the neck for a maple with black block inlays(Geddy Clone), did a series/parallel mod, got it shielded, and had the frets leveled. The problem is its a 5 string and there are very few 5 string P pickups. The only cheap one I found is a Wilkinson 5 string p. BTW the guitar tech said $50-70 just to mill/route one pickup the body. He said it would be extra to cut the pickguard. Does that seem like alot? I don't know as I have never had anything like this done. Thanks for all your advice so far. I will post pictures and mp3s when I am done.
 
#13
line6man said:
The conventional wisdom is that three pickup basses are impractical. Often, having series/parallel switches and other fancy options on a two pickup bass will provide a similar degree of versatility.
Click to expand...
I have an l2500, I am not conventional by any means. I love it, but want more jazz for a round wound sound. Might as well get a p sound also.
 
#14
line6man said:
The conventional wisdom is that three pickup basses are impractical. Often, having series/parallel switches and other fancy options on a two pickup bass will provide a similar degree of versatility.
Click to expand...
As the owner of an Urge I, I have to say that you are, of course, correct. There are a lot of different sounds available in that bass, but there are a lot of different sounds available in two pickup basses as well. In fact, the more recent Stu Hamm signature basses have moved away from the three-pickup configuration - or at least changed it to be meaningful, with two magnetic pickups and a piezo bridge.

However, your comment does not take into account the "cool factor" that goes along with the JPJ configuration. Plus, the Urge I is just a killer little bass. (literally - it is a little bass, even for a medium scale) I maintain that the Urge I is the best production instrument that Fender has ever made and I have played. I have never even seen an Urge II.
 
#15
wvbass said:
As the owner of an Urge I, I have to say that you are, of course, correct. There are a lot of different sounds available in that bass, but there are a lot of different sounds available in two pickup basses as well. In fact, the more recent Stu Hamm signature basses have moved away from the three-pickup configuration - or at least changed it to be meaningful, with two magnetic pickups and a piezo bridge.

However, your comment does not take into account the "cool factor" that goes along with the JPJ configuration. Plus, the Urge I is just a killer little bass. (literally - it is a little bass, even for a medium scale) I maintain that the Urge I is the best production instrument that Fender has ever made and I have played. I have never even seen an Urge II.
Click to expand...


is it possible to get a warmoth body routed for such a thing?
 

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