Good budget Pups

Check out GFS, They only make pups for 4 strings, but they sound really good. And not very costly.

 

I researched MM pickups a while back. Most MM replacement pickups are pretty weak when run passive as they are mostly around 4 ohms and meant to be used with a preamp. But there are a few MM pickups out there that have some output.
I ended up purchasing a Kent Armstrong MM pu. It has 5 output wires and can be wired series/sc/parallel. It runs 13.5 ohms. Plenty of output to match with the p bass pickup. I think Mighty Mite and Wilkenson have some, keeping in the reasonable price range. I paid $58 for a new Kent Armstrong. Got another one off evil bay for $25. I like this pickup.

 

Have you tried them, jworrellbass? I've been very impressed by their guitar pickups, but I've never tried their bass models.

 

No I havn't, I've asked for 5 and 6 string bass pups but he doesn't seem to care. I have used the lil killers in a 12 string tapper I built and they sounded great. By using all 3 in a 36" scale (3 on the bass and another 3 on the melody side) I really got a full tonal range.

 

Carvin makes MM type humbuckers for 4,5 or 6 string basses:

http://www.carvinguitars.com/products/single.php?product=HB4

Perhaps someone with these on a Carvin bass will chime in with a review.


Mike

 

EMGs are often quite reasonably priced, I find, especially the passive ones, although the actives are pretty legendary. They might not fit your budget, though it might be good to take a look. Just be careful about getting EMG selects, I don't find them to be very good personally, although just because they're not my thing doesn't mean they're not yours.

 

The emg selects are very generic sounding. As far as my taste.