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Duncan Hot Stacks for Jazz Bass?

B

BenWhoPlaysBass

Jun 7, 2013
125
5
VA
#1
It's like the title says, I want a new sound for my jazz bass. The stock pickups are fine, but I'm looking for something with a bit heavier tone and more character to it. I haven't been able to find a huge number of vids or sound samples on it but from what I have found they sound pretty good. Big and growly, good rock tone is what I'm looking for.

There's a vid of a guy running them with distortion on.

So has anyone here put these in? Had any experience with the tone? I'm wondering if I should try these or the quarter pounders but I'm really leaning towards the stacks just for the hum cancelling, if anything else.
 
#2
if you want powerful hum-canceling J pickups, the dimarzio stuff will smoke the duncan stacks.

the dimarzios are all "split-coils", like a P pickup stuffed into a jazz housing; as such, they don't have the signal loss of vertical stacks like the duncans. even the vintage-output dimarzio area J will be ballsier than the duncan "hot stack" for this reason.
 
#4
DiMarzio offers great hum-cancelling Jazz pickups at great prices.

Model J = Huge tone, doesn't sound too Jazzish to me with a slightly muted top end. It's still a great pickup.
Ultra J = Not a bad pickup but I don't care for it. A lot of folks say it's scooped sounding. I tend to agree.
Area J = Seems to be the Jazz pickup to get from DiMarzio if you want a more traditional Jazz tone.

All three are good pickups but sound completely different. I'd also take them over the Duncan Jazz Stacks any time.
 
#7
I've used the Duncan Hot Stacks for Jazz in a Warmoth bass for some years. I'm using a V-V-T setup, with 500k volume pots and a Fender TBX tone control.

As others have said, they are not really hot or aggressive sounding (IMO), but I do get a variety of good tones out of them.

I'm (slowly) building another Warmoth and am using the Dimarzio Area J pickups this time. There have been many great reviews on them. Recently, some have also posted positive results with the Fender Super 55s.
 

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