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Gibson tone from a single bass pup?

#7
By Gibson, do you mean the mudbucker pickup?

On my P I get close enough to the tone by rolling tone off some, then plucking right up by the base of the neck. The same P is fairly bright for a P when I pluck at the pickup.

Deepest P pickup might be a Quarter Pounder, but the tone is fairly different than a Gibson.
 
#8
Any pickup that is too far towards the "trebley" side of the sonic spectrum can be made to sound deeper in tone via capacitive loading. You want a J (or P, or pretty much any pickup) to sound like a mudbucker? Absolutely possible, no doubt about it. You don't need to change your pickup, just add the right value (you get to figure that out) capacitor across it.
 
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#13
XsSpeed said:
My main bass is a 79 RD Artist. I love the tone and it suits my band. I have a cheap bc rich with emg geezer p/k and it sounds good as a back up.

I put a geezer p in my westone raider and it’s still too trebley. Is there a better single J to get a deep tone?
Click to expand...
Blades.

Deep, and smooth

Go for a dimarzio
 
#15
My recommendation would be a P90 split coil for P-basses.

The only P-bass pickup I've ever tried that had a bit of Gibson'ish tone is the Lollar Precision 90. I would describe the tone I get from this pickup as 70% P-bass and 30% Gibson'ish. All other P-bass pickups I've tried have just been different colors of 100% P-bass, including QPs and overwound types. The Lollar Precision 90 is a completely different animal, it has a darker tone and a hint of that deep Gibson "growl" in the low mids.

I've never played a Gibson RD though so I'm assuming the tone you want is leaning more towards T-bird than EB. When I use the term "Gibson'ish" to describe the Lollar Precision 90 I really mean "T-bird'ish".

Anyway, I would try a Lollar Precision 90, 250k audio/log taper pots and tone cap no lower than .047 uF. If you want to go darker when rolling off the tone you would try .068 uF or maybe even .100uf (although I suspect .100 uF might get too dark with these P90s).

Curtis Novak also make a P90 split coil for P-basses. I've never tried it though so I can only comment on the Lollar.

Of course you can only get so far without actually moving the pickup to a different position but within the limitations of a P-bass configuration I don't think you can get closer to a Gibson'ish tone than with these P90-style split coils.

Btw, I'm assuming you want a bit of that massive, deep, lower mid "Gibson growl". If you simply want a darker sounding P-bass (when rolling off the tone) you can probably achieve this by replacing the tone cap with a higher value. Especially if you've used the solderless wiring kit with the Geezers. For some reason EMG has decided to use .022 uF tone caps with these kits. That's pretty useless for bass guitar IMO. The stock GZR kits are only suitable for players who don't roll off the tone much. The stock GZR is still quite bright with the tone control all the way down. Replace the tone cap with .047 uF (or higher) and the GZRs will start to behave the way a P-bass is supposed to. The stock wiring kit is totally useless IMO. Of course, replacing the tone cap isn't easy when EMG has used surface mount components on circuit boards instead of traditional wiring. It's probably faster/easier to just re-wire everything using standard components/wiring. I would use 250k audio/log pots and .068 uF tone cap with the GZR. A .047 uF tone cap would also be acceptable. The stock .022 tone cap is more suitable for humbucker equipped GUITARS and more or less useless for bass guitars IMO.
 
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#17
Lammchop93 said:
The Dimarzio model P would do that
Click to expand...

It most certainly would! It could be a good choice if the OP simply wants a beefier P-style tone.

For a hint of that deeper Gibson-tone I would consider the P90 split coils I suggested above though.

Whatever pickup the OP ends up with it will be VERY important to get rid of the EMG GZR wiring kit though. That .022 tone won't roll of the tone in an acceptable way with ANY of these pickups.
 
#18
XsSpeed said:
A beefier and deeper p than emg geezer
Click to expand...

Do you roll off the tone when playing?
Did you use the solderless wiring kit with the GZR?

If the answers to these questions are YES and YES, the solution to your problem may not be to replace the pickup, but the tone cap.

Like I mentioned above, the .022 uF cap EMG has used with these GZR kits isn't really suitable for bass guitar (IMO). There will still be bright upper mids coming through with the tone control at 0%. Pretty useless for MY taste.

Another thing is the resonant peak you get when rolling off the tone on passive basses. With .022 uF you won't get that "fattening" of the tone you normally get when rolling off the tone on P-basses.

Simply replacing the tone cap with a higher value will give you a darker/beefier tone, but ONLY if you're actually rolling off the tone. The tone will stay the same with the tone control at 100%. And the bass will still sound 100% like a P-bass, just a bit darker/beefier when rolling off the tone.

If you want a truly darker/beefier sounding P-bass pickup with a hint of that deeper Gibson humbucker-tone you will probably not find anything closer that the P90-style split coils I suggested above.
 
#19
MidlifeBeginner said:
By Gibson, do you mean the mudbucker pickup?

On my P I get close enough to the tone by rolling tone off some, then plucking right up by the base of the neck. The same P is fairly bright for a P when I pluck at the pickup.

Deepest P pickup might be a Quarter Pounder, but the tone is fairly different than a Gibson.
Click to expand...

Plucking close to the neck + rolling off the tone might get you a bit closer to a mudbucker tone but not to the deep, growly T-bird style humbucker tone. I've never played an RD bass (which is the OP's reference tone) but I suspect it must be a lot closer to the Gibson T-bird tone that to the Gibson EB-style mudbucker tone. Plucking close to the neck will NOT get you anywhere near a T-bird tone.
 

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