Electronics help -new builder

[BassPuzzler]

Okay so I'm organizing my first build, figuring out all of the components and stuff, and I am totally overwhelmed by choosing electronics.

Should I have active or passive pickups?
How many options should my switch have? What will it do?
What kinds of pickups should I use? Where should they be?
If I use a humbucker, should it be in parallel or series, or should I have an option to switch? Should I have it so one half can be turned off?

It's a lot to think about. I'd like some general advice and help.
Basically I think I want to have two pickups (unless there is some kind of good reason to have three, two seems like enough and it saves money). Generally I'd like a sound that is tight, but not too bright. Of course, with tone knobs and pickup blending there are a lot of sonic possibilities, but "tight but not too bright" is really my general goal.

Thanks!

 

[SurferJoe46]

You're gonna have to narrow the options down a lot to get some decent answers.

Everybody has an opinion,. but there's just too many undecided ideas floating here methinks.

Pick a musical direction: what kinda music do you like - you want modern slappy-shrill or mellow funk?

Surf?
Blues?
Bavarian-Neo Metal Fusion?
Irish jigs?
Klezmer?
Swing?

Lots to think about.

 

[truecanadian04]

To make it simple, just pick the style of bass you want to play(funk, R&B, rock, metal). After you pick a style, pick out bass players in the style that you look up to. And then, look up the gear they use and try to look for similarties(bass, amp, effects). Make sure you do your research and look at all the pro's and con's.

 

[BassPuzzler]

Well Jazz and Rock are the styles I would be playing mostly. Also I really like gustavo dal farra's tone but I have no idea what he uses. Looks like two soapbars.

 

[truecanadian04]

A lot of jazz and rock bass players use fender jazz(I would get the American Standard Jazz Bass V (Five String)), its about $2000. Then I would look into a nice ampeg setup. something like Ampeg SVT 4PRO Bass Head(1600 watts) its about $1500 or the Ampeg SVT Classic Bass Head(300 watts(tube)) and it goes for about $1800. Now for the cab I would recommend getting two Ampeg Heritage SVT410HLF Cabinets (The reason I would get two is because it easier to move around from gig to gig) and they go for about $800 each. When it comes to effects get a good compressor/limiter(BBE MaxCom) and they go for about $300. To make sure you get the nice sound I would use GHS Bass Boomers for strings, and they go for about $30. I hope this helps!!!