EMGs for GTR in B A S S?!

[merseymale]

I've been given 2 EMG Strats & an EMG SA 'bucker but I am very happy with my Guitar's tone so wonder if these will be good in my mediocre sounding BASS?

Anyone had any experience putting ACTIVE GUITAR pickups in a PASSIVE BASS & do ya'll have any opinions, please?

Thanks in advance!

 

[ardgedee]

Try it and see what happens. You can always take them out if you don't like the result.

The main differences between guitar and bass pickups are the width and positions of the poles. If they're wide enough to fit under the strings then the width isn't a problem. If your EMGs have rails instead of poles then string alignment isn't a problem.

(edit: Okay I only now noticed that they're active pickups. This means they have built-in preamps and you'll have to provide them a source of power even if the bass's tone and volume controls do not require power. This is somewhat different from having an "active" bass (which 95% of the time means the pickups are passive and there's a powered preamp in the body of the bass). EMG's product pages for your pickups provide wiring instructions.)

 

[Michael Vee]

EMG recommends two guitar pickups for bass standard-size humbucker installations, the Invalid Link Removedand it's H3A variant, and the Invalid Link Removed/H4A. These are passive pickups.

Beyond that, as ardgedee said, try the one/s that you have and let your ear guide you. It's just time spent in the installation.

 

[laklandplayer]

Putting single coil guitar pickups in the Fender Bronco bass is a direct fit and a popular modification, especially the duncan rail

 

[merseymale]

Thanks everyone you're right I'm going to give it a try....

 

[Crater]

Let us know how it works. Active pickups typically have wide, flat frequency response, so I suspect they will work and sound just fine. Remember active pickups have a lower output impedance than passive pickups, you'll need to use 25 K Ohm pots for volume and the (passive) tone control. If you use a standard 250 K Ohm volume control it will act like an on/off switch.

 

[merseymale]

Let us know how it works. Active pickups typically have wide, flat frequency response, so I suspect they will work and sound just fine. Remember active pickups have a lower output impedance than passive pickups, you'll need to use 25 K Ohm pots for volume and the (passive) tone control. If you use a standard 250 K Ohm volume control it will act like an on/off switch.

Thanks!
I know it's subjective but I think they make better BASS pick ups them normal pick ups

Strangely they are kind of lacking in character in a good way -a direct way

 

[Stylee Mousse]

Puckups can be odd things. I reconstructed a short-scale EB copy bass that had boring kinda hollow mid but dark sounding Japanese Hofner clone pickups to a piccolo bass.

I had changed the neck pickup for a Gibson guitar P-90 and saw it as a big improvement for standard bass.

As a piccolo that cheapie bridge sounds great in medium OD or fuzz - better than the P-90. At least more complex sounding.