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Do you lose anything with a PJ?
- Thread starter hrodbert696
- Start date
Me too, but you never will. People will speak their version of the "truth" without knowing if it is actually true. Welcome to the human condition.
Dan, you sound as though you have experience of this hapening from another thread or something...
Oh, wait a minute.
Somewhat true. However, I have a jazz bass with p/j set up and had the P-pup wired with a Series/parallel switch. So you can get the P to sound pretty darn close to a J, and flip the switch & roll off the J completely, and you got a P bass.
Best of both worlds
IMHO that is
No one has mentioned the magnetic pull on the strings by the unused pickup while the other is soloed. So I will. Would nylon wrapped strings prevent this possible issue? Is it even an issue?
To me, the biggest disadvatange of a P/J is that most P/J basses are wired just like a regular J bass, but they lack the hum cancelling of a J bass. So unless the J pickup is some kind of noiseless model (which most stock P/J basses DON'T have) you will always have some degree of added hum or noise from the J pickup. That has bugged me with every P/J bass I have owned. Why more P/J basses don't automatically come with noiseless pickups, I don't know...
Many bass players prefer the classic plain P bass, many others prefer the J-J, and much less prefer the PJ.
It can't be a win/win, unless you don't think the majority preferring P or JJ are all idiots.
Maybe 99,95% of people wouldn't recognize the real P from the soloed P on a PJ, but I'm afraid that the percentage of people fooling the soloed neck pickup on a JJ for a P would be frightening...
IMO neck pickups sound like neck pickups. Do I hear a difference between a solo'd J neck pickup and a P pickup? Yes, but they still sound like neck pickups.
- Jul 7, 2010
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- Endorsing Artist for: Duncan Pickups; Line6, Hipshot, GHS Strings, Somnium Guitars
No way, the best of both worlds is a PJ setup and it comes down to what pickups you use. (I use a Duncan SPB-3 & STK-J2b, fyi)
P by it's self is, well it's a P-bass tone (lol) and when you roll on the J it smooths out the tone to a much wider range of music and usage....just my 1-1/2 cents...
P by it's self is, well it's a P-bass tone (lol) and when you roll on the J it smooths out the tone to a much wider range of music and usage....just my 1-1/2 cents...
I have 3 js and 1 p. Will eventually get a pj, but will use a noiseless j of some sort in the bridge to maintain hum control. My js have Fender noiseless, SCNs and Di Marzio Js.,in each. Thinking of building a pj with Bardens.
I have 3 noral P basses and 3 PJ basses...
I find myself grabbing the PJ basses more often.
One is actually a converted Jazz.
The only difference I can tell is the standard difference between basses in general.
I find myself grabbing the PJ basses more often.
One is actually a converted Jazz.
The only difference I can tell is the standard difference between basses in general.
I have two basses with P/Js. My favorite for just about every sound in the universe is a Sadowsky NYC. It's a downsized jazz body with a jazz width neck and the J pickup is hum cancelling, with a blend pot. I found that with every Jazz I owned I would slightly favor the neck pickup for a fatter sound so this, for me , is a perfect combination. I get a great fat Jazz Bass sound, and when the P pickup is soloed it sounds as close to a P bass as I'll need.
Passive P/J = Seemingly great idea that manifestly isn't but just won't go away. 
Terminal level of V/V/T Syndrome, which is bad enough to begin with even with less dissimilar pickups, but in a P/J makes mixing utterly impossible.
Doubt it? Get an HRPB -- Fender's own pricey failure at the concept -- and try to make the volume pots mix properly. They won't. Not a prayer.
Rig up some kind of remedial electronic geekery and you might be OK, but V/V/T P/Js are stone hopeless as they sit.
Terminal level of V/V/T Syndrome, which is bad enough to begin with even with less dissimilar pickups, but in a P/J makes mixing utterly impossible.
Doubt it? Get an HRPB -- Fender's own pricey failure at the concept -- and try to make the volume pots mix properly. They won't. Not a prayer.
Rig up some kind of remedial electronic geekery and you might be OK, but V/V/T P/Js are stone hopeless as they sit.
That is definitely true. Although I usually try and change that. I've never had one that's been too bad, though. And it doesn't seem as bad as a J bass with the pickups not at the exact same volume.
I'm with the party that find little reason NOT to have a P/J instead of just a P. The circuit differences can be debated forever, but I did read something before about the J pickup making the string tension different because of the extra magnetic pull on them. I haven't actually tested that, but I feel like that is something that could be more easily "felt" than the extra pot can be "heard" with this setup. I also love 3 way switches though, and I'm tempted to put them in all my basses.
Then again I am hardly picky when it comes to things like that, and I don't care enough to spend a lot of time testing it. I find what I get from the added bridge J more valuable than anything I might be losing from the P by having it.
