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Dual P Pickup Club!

#321
Jeez. You could have at least used the picture that shows them both off! :) You can see the forward offset of the bridge pickup in the white bass a bit better in this picture. The folks that made that pickguard shifted it forward. I would make a new one, but the bass sounds too good to modify. Ignore the blue thing (although it has side by side split pickups, too).

Big three.jpg


And for those of you who want to modify your basses, below is a pdf with the positions. You'll end up with a small swimming pool at the normal precision position, but you can also add a third one about where the Rickenbacker neck pickup is positioned (hypothetical 24th fret). I did not make the original drawing of the P body, but added the reverse P pickups when I was thinking about a new bass I've been (not) working on for way too long.
 

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#323
cholyoke said:
Jeez. You could have at least used the picture that shows them both off! :) You can see the forward offset of the bridge pickup in the white bass a bit better in this picture. The folks that made that pickguard shifted it forward. I would make a new one, but the bass sounds too good to modify. Ignore the blue thing (although it has side by side split pickups, too).

View attachment 3963118

And for those of you who want to modify your basses, below is a pdf with the positions. You'll end up with a small swimming pool at the normal precision position, but you can also add a third one about where the Rickenbacker neck pickup is positioned (hypothetical 24th fret). I did not make the original drawing of the P body, but added the reverse P pickups when I was thinking about a new bass I've been (not) working on for way too long.
Click to expand...

Beautiful pic. And the pdf is great. Thanks so much.

You don’t happen to have any sound clips, do you?
 
#327
OK. Here's can of worms...

Pickup selection.

The bass I'm going to mod is Mexi P, cheap and cheerful. The stock pickup is apparently ok, but not amazing.

To start off with, I simply want to make the mod to put in the bridge P pickup. Good candidates look likely to be the DiMarzio Model P, or the Seymour Duncan SPB-3.

If I mod both, looks to me like dual DiMarzio Model Ps, or Seymour Duncan SPB-1 at middle and SPB-3 at rear. Both of those seem popular enough choices.

The EMG Geezer Butler pickup sounds great in the demos I hear. Starting to get too many options....

Thoughts?
 
#328
SuperFunkyPete said:
OK. Here's can of worms...

Pickup selection.

The bass I'm going to mod is Mexi P, cheap and cheerful. The stock pickup is apparently ok, but not amazing.

To start off with, I simply want to make the mod to put in the bridge P pickup. Good candidates look likely to be the DiMarzio Model P, or the Seymour Duncan SPB-3.

If I mod both, looks to me like dual DiMarzio Model Ps, or Seymour Duncan SPB-1 at middle and SPB-3 at rear. Both of those seem popular enough choices.

The EMG Geezer Butler pickup sounds great in the demos I hear. Starting to get too many options....

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
when I tried the SPB-1 I found it very scooped but strangely kind of dark as well, SPB-3 has a mid scoop but has much stronger treble response than the SPB-1 (to my ears anyway), I think if you went SPB-1 and SPB-3 you would have too much scoop, I would go SPB-2 in mid position and SPB-3 at the bridge, that way you have the SPB-2 which would give you strong mids and the SPB-3 that you could dial in to brighten up the tone
 
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#329
Yes, there are far too many options in the aftermarket P pickup universe.

I recommend you pick one that seems reasonable, install it, and evaluate from there. Remember, the pickup works in conjunction with the rest of the instrument’s attributes to deliver its tone, so the same exact pickup will sound different in different instruments.
 
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#330
shoulderpet said:
when I tried the SPB-1 I found it very scooped but strangely kind of dark as well, SPB-3 has a mid scoop but has much stronger treble response than the SPB-1 (to my ears anyway), I think if you went SPB-1 and SPB-3 you would have too much scoop, I would go SPB-2 in mid position and SPB-3 at the bridge, that way you have the SPB-2 which would give you strong mids and the SPB-3 that you could dial in to brighten up the tone
Click to expand...

I have used the SPB-2 in the center/neck position and SPB-3 in the bridge position for the reasons listed here. I chose the SPB-2 because I liked the demos on the Seymour Duncan website for the SPB-2 better than the SPB-1 or 3. Running the SPB-2 alone sounds great in my bass. I used the SPB-3 in the bridge position because it has a higher output than the SPB-2, which should make up for the decrease in signal due to being closer to the bridge. However, I would bet that the fender pickup is fine in the neck positiion. The one that came with my bass in '91 was fine for 25 years until I started coming to talkbass.

Then I needed to get a steve harris pickup. Then I needed to reverse the pickup and add a reversed bridge pickup and change the neck to a maple fretboard jazz width neck. Then I needed to build another bass like that with five strings. Then I needed a fretless one. Then I needed...

Just use the one you have. Then you get a good idea about how the reversal sounds.
 
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#331
cholyoke said:
Just use the one you have. Then you get a good idea about how the reversal sounds.
Click to expand...

Wise words. I’m going to do that.

Bridge will be either SPB-3 or Dimarzio Model P then, later, after I mess with reversal of existing pickup first. The videos on YouTube comparing them head to head are good; both sound great to me, but the nod goes to the DiMarzio, I think, after listening again tonight. I think it will work well in the bridge position.

Thanks @cholyoke.
 
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#332
Good luck and be careful with the router! Gentle is best. I think the cleanest pickup rout I made is the one I made in a 2x4 when I was teaching myself how to use the router and was totally scared of it.

If you have the capability, make recordings before and after. All of the videos above are great, but I don't know of one that is the same bass before and after. The video of the two BC Rich Eagles is what convinced me to do it. That and reverse P looks cooler, so it must sound better, too.
 
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#336
BazzaBass said:
Anyone have experience regarding the difference between a Sklar like Dual P Vs a Sheehan like P & Mudbucker?
Click to expand...
Billy’s basses are not built that way to utilize both pickups coming through the same rig. He has a totally different approach then 99.99% of bassists with 2 pickup P basses. Us guys with our pickups far apart with one near the bridge, are using the neck pickup as our main sound and the bridge pickup is used to add that bridge pickup burp, clarity, brightness etc to our neck pickups sound. Billy’s “bridge pickup” is actually a middle position P pickup. It’s his main sound. He uses the neck mud bucker (through a second rig) to add huge amounts of low end.... the opposite of what most of us dual P guys do.
 
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#337
SuperFunkyPete said:
Wise words. I’m going to do that.

Bridge will be either SPB-3 or Dimarzio Model P then, later, after I mess with reversal of existing pickup first. The videos on YouTube comparing them head to head are good; both sound great to me, but the nod goes to the DiMarzio, I think, after listening again tonight. I think it will work well in the bridge position.

Thanks @cholyoke.
Click to expand...
Honestly I would say to see if you can get both used either or here or on ebay, that way you can try both and sell the one you don't use for the same amount you paid for it. The reason I say this is that with most pickup comparison videos the limitations of the recordings mean that you don't see (or hear) the full picture, on Youtube comparisons pickups that are very different can sound very similar and then when you actually try them out in person they sound nothing like the videos
 
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#340
shoulderpet said:
when I tried the SPB-1 I found it very scooped but strangely kind of dark as well, SPB-3 has a mid scoop but has much stronger treble response than the SPB-1 (to my ears anyway), I think if you went SPB-1 and SPB-3 you would have too much scoop, I would go SPB-2 in mid position and SPB-3 at the bridge, that way you have the SPB-2 which would give you strong mids and the SPB-3 that you could dial in to brighten up the tone
Click to expand...

this is interesting - when I first took delivery of my double p bass many moons ago it had a duncan hot in the middle position and a QP in the bridge (Both normal orientation). I found the hot to be great sounding but “too much” in the mix for my old band, and swapped it out for a SPB-1, which I love (granted, the bass was gone for 15 years after I sold it, and only recently bought it back).

I don’t find the sound to be scooped, at least to my ears. Even with the QP blended in scooped isn’t the word I would use - I get more focus than anything else when engaging the bridge pickup.

will try to record some sound clips at some point this weekend - it’s a great sounding bass to me.
 
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