Help with pickups on two basses

[thevintagesound]

I have a SX jazz bass with Dimarzio Model J's, 500k pots as my backup bass. My main bass is an Epi Tbird. I AB'd the two basses and my jazz was about half the volume of the tbird. What could I do to fix this? The Tbird just sounds huge, the dimarzio's are supposed to sound big as well.

If I could only find a set of Epi Tbird pickups ...

 

[A9X]

Turn up the volume control on your amp.

 

[WashburnBasser]

Raise the pickups?

 

[thevintagesound]

Turn up the volume control on your amp.

Generally when you AB something or want to use them both at a show, you dont want to have to worry about adjusting the amp or pedals. That defeats the purpose.

 

[sonicnuance]

Generally when you AB something or want to use them both at a show, you dont want to have to worry about adjusting the amp or pedals. That defeats the purpose.

I had a similar issue which I solved. I recommend the following solutions:

1) a boost pedal and an ab switch (I use a Boss GE7B to adjust the volume and eq my passive bass). I built a passive AB switch but several companies make these.

2) Radial Bassbone. Very nice but I wanted more eq control and have a Jensen xformer DI so I didn't need it. Expensive but quality stuff.

3) EBS Microbass II - never tried it, very expensive

4) ab switch in front of a multi effect pedal where you hit a patch that changes volumes.

5) put a preamp in the low volume bass

good luck

 

[A9X]

Generally when you AB something or want to use them both at a show, you dont want to have to worry about adjusting the amp or pedals. That defeats the purpose.

Changing the pickups for ones that are hotter will change the tone. Use a grease pencil and mark the settings for the two basses on the amp. Will take 2 secs and you're already changing instruments which will take longer than that.

 

[thevintagesound]

I'm not too worried about changing a jazz bass' tone to something else. I'd love to see what a set of tbird pickups sound like in a jazz bass.