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Good pickup for motown sound

#5
seanm said:
IMHO a set of flats will get you closer to a Motown/Stax sound than a pickup change will.
Click to expand...

Great advice! I love the Thomastik-Infeld JF344 strings. Plenty of people like the La Bellas among others but I do feel these are particularly special. They feel great as well.

As for pick ups, I hear the Seymour Duncan SPB-1 is great.

Above all of this... I'd say in your hands. Good luck on your search.
 
#6
I just threw a schaller p pup in a parts build, add some flatwounds and BAM, motown here we come. It also looks like the pup is nearly identical to a dimarzio dp120, tonally and structurally.

But yeah, either flats or really old strings with a really light touch.
 
#8
Plain ol' SD "vintage" series not half bad, either (but about half the price!).
I'm a big fan of Fralins, but the stock Fender '62 is great as well. It's actually pretty hard to go wrong with a P P'up. Most on the market are pretty good.
 
#13
all true, but the mexi pickup is nothing like a classic P pickup; any "vintage" replacement, even "standard-issue" types like the duncan SPB-1 or the fender original 62 would be the missing piece of the puzzle.
 
#15
mech said:
Find a set of 10 year old flats that someone is replacing that fit your bass. That'll do more to achieve the Motown sound than any PU swap. JOOFO.

mech
Click to expand...

And/or some well placed foam under the strings by the bridge. With new flat wounds, this will cut string ring. You can adjust the ring by foam placement and/or density of foam.
 
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#16
Bah...give me a Ritter with rounds, a micro and a fEarful and I can still make it sound like Motown. Granted, it won't be the exact identical sound, but it'll sound like Motown because I'm tight like that.

:D
 
#17
If you're on a budget, I'll go for the SD SPB-1. Awesome pickup.

I actually prefer the sound of the Fralin I have in another bass for the music I play, but I feel like the SPB-1 copes the Motown sound a little bit better.

That said, get flats if you haven't already. On a P-bass, they'll get you a big part of the motown sound.
 
#18
Its more the player you can use rounds and be fine. Their is that fine balance of having older strings not to bright, but not to worn out to stay in tune.

I just like a pickup with decent frequency response and good output. Just a basic P setup and a good player will get that sound.
otherwise mexi pickups not so special so just any basic upgrade pickup is gonna make you happy.

I have had good luck with seymour duncans quarter pounds i like the bigger poles on those, otherwise the Antiquity aint to bad. a good setup with nice string height and then the pickup height
to match. You will notice a good change from mexi stock.
 

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