Guitar Pickups in A Bass

[mooreon131]

Alright, I'm thinkin about getting a Bronco bass which comes with a squier strat (i think its a strat anyway) bridge pickup in it stock. I didn't know that you could actually do that and a get a "decent" sound out of it until like a week ago. So I wanna know if anybody has put a guitar pickup in a bass before, and how it sounded. And if it did, any suggestions for good guitar pickups to put in a bass would be awesome. Thanks!

btw, i forgot to mention i paly mostly punk, and i like to use distortion. not all the time, but i like to solo with distortion, so that might influence the choice, i.e. stacked, or blades over single coil, whatever. just keep the responses coming!

 

[R. Laevinus]

I haven't mounted them permanently, but I have tested it and I know that it will work. How well, depends on the pickup in question.

If you're going to go that way, I'd vote for something in a Dimarzio or a SeyDunk. Get something with blade polepieces and humbucking - and you may wish to examine pups marketed towards metalhead guitards, as they have a tendency to downtune.

 

[Govier966]

I had a bronco, i could not seem to get a decent sound out of it with the stock pickup. If you are going to use guitar pickups use rail pickups. I would recomend a 51 p bass style pickup as it will be a drop in replacement and the punchy tone of the 51 will go well with the athagis body on the bronco.

 

[rllefebv]

I had a bronco, i could not seem to get a decent sound out of it with the stock pickup. If you are going to use guitar pickups use rail pickups. I would recomend a 51 p bass style pickup as it will be a drop in replacement and the punchy tone of the 51 will go well with the athagis body on the bronco.

Sorry, but not true at all... The '51 SCPB has a much broader string spacing and is a wider pickup altogether. This will not drop in... Granted, you can mod the bass to fit it... Check this thread for some excellent modded Bronco's, specifically ponticat's at post #17... A few of those have the '51 p'up in them...

Before you give up on the stock pickup, I would strongly suggest wiring it straight to the output jack for a listen... On my '78 Musicmaster (basically a Bronco... strat-style pickup, spartan bridge) the original controls were huge tone sucks... I was gutting it and took a shot at bypassing the controls, and there it was... All the tone you could ask for!

In the last seven years, I have been through a number of pickups on this little guy... about a month ago I came back to the original pickup and am very satisfied... Threw in some CTS pots and an OrangeDrop capacitor and this is a little tone machine!

Give it a shot... The worst that can happen is you'll have an excellent sounding bass without having to apend any extra!

-robert

P.S. For punk, that straight-to-the-jack trick rules!

 

[4StringTheorist]

Invalid Link Removed should work delightfully.

I'm thinking of putting two of the guitar humbucker sized ones in my Steinberger. That, or some of the pickups from SGD.

 

[mooreon131]

Before you give up on the stock pickup, I would strongly suggest wiring it straight to the output jack for a listen...

Thanks for all the responses but the most promising, and admittedly most intriguing so far has been rllefebv's post. Again, being an electronics n00b, i didn't know that you could do that. My only question is does it matter which wire goes to which part of the jack, or what? If it does could somebody post some sort of tutorial, or explanation of how to do it? Also, if anyone else has anymore p'up suggestions, guitar of bass, that'd be appreciated too

 

[ewimsatt]

If you look at the back of a jack, there is a metal ring around the hole that connects to a lug. That is the ground. The other is the hot.

 

[nic salsus]

as has been mentioned anything with blades instead of individual pole pieces will work. seymour duncan, dimarzio and bill lawrence (who i think invented them) are readily available. i'm sure there are others too if you search. danelectro type lipstick tube p.ups also work great.

 

[ewimsatt]

I rewound a pickup 2 weeks ago that surprised me. The customer brought in the pickup without the bass. We said it came out of a Music Master bass. I'd never heard of it, but the pickup was a 60's CBS era strat pickup. The only mod was an extra piece of flatwork added on top of the original top flatwork. Other than that, it was a stock 1960s grey bottom CBS era start pickup. I never got to hear it installed, but I got word it sounded great.

 

[Jefenator]

As others have mentioned, the Musicmaster came with a strat pickup in stock form. Do a search for "Musicmaster Pickup" and you'll pull up some specific models folks have had good results with. (Including my favorite: the bass-specific Aero.)

 

[NoBlackTShirts]

If you look at the back of a jack, there is a metal ring around the hole that connects to a lug. That is the ground. The other is the hot.

You know, I've been screwing with this stuff for over 40 years and that's one of the best explanations I've heard.

NB

 

[xaxxat]

One of the GFS rail pups would be an easy solution. I wish I had tried one in my Bronco before I sold it.

http://store.guitarfetish.com/singlecoil.html