Fender Musicmaster replacement pickup

[Bradford Craig]

Rehabbing my wife's Seafoam Musicmaster bass. Due to the low output and RF susceptibility, I decided to replace the stock single coil (actually stratocaster) pickup with a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound single coil pickup. I haven't yet hooked it up, but I did run into a few snags regarding the mounting.
Installation required me to make the following tweaks:
Widen the pickup hole in the pickguard by a few mm
Replace the stock pickup screws with #6 3/4" long screws
Add 1/4" nylon spacers under the stock rubber spacers to bring the pickup down to a usable height
Note: the string spacing on the new pickup is a bit wider than the MM strings, but this doesn't seem to be an issue.
More notes to follow after I've hooked it all up. Also replacing stock electronics with a StewMac P-bass electronics kit.

 

[Bass4ThePublic]

Have you considered having the original pickup rewound?

 

[Bradford Craig]

Have you considered having the original pickup rewound?

Hi Bass4Public

Have you considered having the original pickup rewound?

Thanks for the comment. I haven't ever had that done. This is actually the first pickup swap I've ever done, so I wanted to keep it as simple as possible. I've already bought and mounted the new pickup, so I'll probably continue down this route, but maybe for my vintage Danelectro Shorthorn, a pickup rewind would probably be the best thing to do. Happy to hear any guidance regarding rewinding vintage lipstick pickups.

 

[abarson]

Sentell makes Musicmaster pickups and can do pickup rewinds.
Sentell Pickups Rewinding Service
Sentell Pickups bass guitar pickups
Scroll down midway for the B23 Lil Sis, B16 single coil, B18 Big Sis, or B48 bass humbucker.

 

[Bradford Craig]

Abarson thanks for the links... Damn, I wish I'd seen this earlier.

 

[iiipopes]

The standard upgrade for a MusicMaster bass pickup is a rails Strat pickup, since the MusicMaster bass actually uses a Mustang guitar pickup stock. The Seymour Duncan bridge version of a Cool Rails Strat pickup is used for a clean sound, and the Hot Rails Strat pickup is used for how much mid push is desired, neck for a little, bridge for a lot.

 

[Jefenator]

There are just a few aftermarket Musicmaster bass pickups that I am aware of. (That's what exposed me to Aero pickups, who make a fantastic product IMHO.)
But there are quite a few options in the common "Strat" shape - even after ruling out designs with the 6 poles meant to go under each string of a guitar. My current Musicmaster has a red Lace Sensor pickup which seems to be working just fine - plenty of output and tonal range for my sometimes-fussy taste.
The SCPB style is too wide for the string spacing and the original mounting, as you have noticed. But I've seen others use it happily in their Musicmasters. (Just goes to show how precise alignment of strings over poles might be a bit of an OCD thing...)
Enjoy!

 

[Bradford Craig]

There are just a few aftermarket Musicmaster bass pickups that I am aware of. (That's what exposed me to Aero pickups, who make a fantastic product IMHO.)
But there are quite a few options in the common "Strat" shape - even after ruling out designs with the 6 poles meant to go under each string of a guitar. My current Musicmaster has a red Lace Sensor pickup which seems to be working just fine - plenty of output and tonal range for my sometimes-fussy taste.
The SCPB style is too wide for the string spacing and the original mounting, as you have noticed. But I've seen others use it happily in their Musicmasters. (Just goes to show how precise alignment of strings over poles might be a bit of an OCD thing...)
Enjoy!

Thank you Jefenator!!! You've put my low-grade OCD to rest, and I'll finish the install tonight.

 

[matt-o-]

Show us a picture, when you are done.

 

[Bobbadfinger]

I had an 78 Musicmaster some years ago, where I subbed the original pickup for a hotrail.
Pretty cool P tone, you can check it out on the link above (be gentle, it's just a test recording when I was learning Sonar, played everything except the harp).

 

[WI Short Scaler]

Rehabbing my wife's Seafoam Musicmaster bass. Due to the low output and RF susceptibility, I decided to replace the stock single coil (actually stratocaster) pickup with a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound single coil pickup. I haven't yet hooked it up, but I did run into a few snags regarding the mounting.
Installation required me to make the following tweaks:
Widen the pickup hole in the pickguard by a few mm
Replace the stock pickup screws with #6 3/4" long screws
Add 1/4" nylon spacers under the stock rubber spacers to bring the pickup down to a usable height
Note: the string spacing on the new pickup is a bit wider than the MM strings, but this doesn't seem to be an issue.
More notes to follow after I've hooked it all up. Also replacing stock electronics with a StewMac P-bass electronics kit.

How did it all go? Maybe I missed another thread?

I had that SD 1/4 pounder in my Musicmaster for awhile and the E string was always muddy. But I was playing in a loud band with a loud drummer so the only one it bothered was me.

Now I play in a 3 pc with cajon and no drums, so it became problematic. Now I have a Nordstrand '51 tele custom 17mm string spacing and it's very noticeably cleaner on all 4 strings. It lines up just as it should too.