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EMG single coil in a Bronco

#21
IMG-3011.jpg

I beg you to consider this pickup instead. The EMG HB pickup came standard in early Steinberger basses and is a P bass pickup in a guitar humbucker housing. The only thing you will need to do is cut the pickguard. There is ample room in the Bronco body cavity.

Soundwise you would successfully use this bass anywhere you would use a P bass. I truly feel this would be a significant improvement over an SA pickup or similar. If you are ever in south Georgia, USA hit me up and you can check it out.
 
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#23
S.F.Sorrow said:
Personally I would use a bass pickup in a bass. Guitar pickups are voiced differently for a reason.
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There are many different guitar pickup "voicings" - if you look at where the resonant peak is in a guitar pickup (pickups are flat up to that peak, they resonate at that peak, and after that they roll off), they are all over the map - there is a very wide range of voicings available in guitar pickups.

When you look at bass pickups, you find a decently wide range of voicings - not quite as wide of a range, but still a pretty wide range. The range that bass pickups are voiced in? It's a subset of the range that guitar pickups are voiced in - it's not a different range.

Both kinds of pickups are tuned to where people like to hear that resonant peak. Bass players share the same ear/brain anatomy and preferences as guitarists - there is no real difference between a guitar and a bass pickup, in terms of voicing.
 
#24
I know two people who have swapped out their stock Bronco pickup with a Lace Sensor pickup (with the RED print), and both basses sounded terrific with no hum. And no routing or reshaping the pickguard either!

(My sources tell me that you might need to replace the capacitor if you do this, but that is way above my understanding and pay grade.)
 
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#25
fretlessman71 said:
I know two people who have swapped out their stock Bronco pickup with a Lace Sensor pickup (with the RED print), and both basses sounded terrific with no hum. And no routing or reshaping the pickguard either!

(My sources tell me that you might need to replace the capacitor if you do this, but that is way above my understanding and pay grade.)
Click to expand...

Yep, I did the same (but with their "blue" pickup), works great. Easy peasy, drop right in and go. One of many viable solutions. Many people find such "guitar" pickup swap-ins to be very useful and musical, tends to make a good sound.

The EMG's being discussed (passive, Strat type) seem like they'd work and be less noisy. Personally I'd incline toward the S4 there, less emphasis on highs and plenty o' power. I imagine the S1 would work ok too - aesthetically I'd be bugged by the string/poles mismatch, and I'd wonder if the sound was affected there (though if it's not noticed, then what's the dif? :)) Tons of options available.

One question: If these S series EMG's are solderless, isn't it still necessary to solder a connector for them at the harness? (Which then would connect to the pickup wires without any solder needed?) Or is the thought to just buy a new solderless harness along with the new pickup?
 
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#26
TyBo said:
Yep, I did the same (but with their "blue" pickup), works great. Easy peasy, drop right in and go. One of many viable solutions. Many people find such "guitar" pickup swap-ins to be very useful and musical, tends to make a good sound.
Click to expand...
I was told that the "Red label" pickups have the greatest bass response of the Lace options. As always, YMMV.
 
#28
fretlessman71 said:
I was told that the "Red label" pickups have the greatest bass response of the Lace options. As always, YMMV.
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Usually “improved bass response” just means decreased high response and damped peak amplitude at the resonant frequency, both are often just the result of extra winding (ie a “hot” pickup). A large resonant peak at a high frequency can make a pickup sound quite bright and thin since our ears are much more sensitive to those highs/high-mids so the otherwise flat low-end can be masked
 
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#29
funkmaster p said:
View attachment 4894263
I beg you to consider this pickup instead. The EMG HB pickup came standard in early Steinberger basses and is a P bass pickup in a guitar humbucker housing. The only thing you will need to do is cut the pickguard. There is ample room in the Bronco body cavity.

Soundwise you would successfully use this bass anywhere you would use a P bass. I truly feel this would be a significant improvement over an SA pickup or similar. If you are ever in south Georgia, USA hit me up and you can check it out.
Click to expand...

I wanna go for the Emg 35HZ. Its a bit longer though.
 
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#32
TyBo said:
Personally I'd incline toward the S4 there, less emphasis on highs and plenty o' power. I imagine the S1 would work ok too - aesthetically I'd be bugged by the string/poles mismatch, and I'd wonder if the sound was affected there (though if it's not noticed, then what's the dif? :)) Tons of options available.

One question: If these S series EMG's are solderless, isn't it still necessary to solder a connector for them at the harness? (Which then would connect to the pickup wires without any solder needed?) Or is the thought to just buy a new solderless harness along with the new pickup?
Click to expand...

The S1 and S4 scare me a bit because of the description for more mids and lows. This bass trends towards muddiness and *barely* enough top end so I'd be worried that any emphasis down in those ranges would make it too muddy.

EMG's pickups when you order from their website come with solderless knobs, solderless jack, solderless ground connection, all the connector wires. I've installed 4 of their kits in the last few years and have a hard time seeing myself going back to soldering.
 
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#33
alex1fly said:
The S1 and S4 scare me a bit because of the description for more mids and lows. This bass trends towards muddiness and *barely* enough top end so I'd be worried that any emphasis down in those ranges would make it too muddy.

EMG's pickups when you order from their website come with solderless knobs, solderless jack, solderless ground connection, all the connector wires. I've installed 4 of their kits in the last few years and have a hard time seeing myself going back to soldering.
Click to expand...
Yeah when replacing a single coil with a humbucker I’d definitely aim for the brighter options available (which are still likely to be a little less open sounding just by design)
 
#34
When using a guitar pickup on bass, always look for the cleaner/more even/less hyped response. "High output" guitar pickups usually mean lots of lower midrange output and not much else, which is not good for a bass.
 
#38
greenscharlie said:
What about a real guitar humbucker instead of a singlecoil dual rail ?
Or a Quadrail ?
Does a dual rail strat pickup sound as fat as a normal humbucker, or humbucker for bass ?
Click to expand...

The stock pickup is a true single coil and the bass is really, really fat sounding both acoustically and amplified. I wouldn't want to put a humbucker in there. The passive EMG route is nice for me - fun, easy, no shielding required.
 

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