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"J" pickups discussion and comparisons.

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#841
jbailes said:
Are they pretty responsive to harmonics?
Click to expand...

I didn't have much time to really go at them, but I'd say Joel's got it right.

My experience with the Dimarzio family has included all 3 J pickups that they make (briefly on each). The Model J and Ultra Jazz have the scooped, crispy, modern J tone. The Area sounds a lot more like a traditional, warm J pickup.
 
#842
rojo412 said:
I didn't have much time to really go at them, but I'd say Joel's got it right.

My experience with the Dimarzio family has included all 3 J pickups that they make (briefly on each). The Model J and Ultra Jazz have the scooped, crispy, modern J tone. The Area sounds a lot more like a traditional, warm J pickup.
Click to expand...

The Model J's I've used have all had a good low mid...very beefy sound.
 
#843
I must admit that the DiMarzio Model J (aka DP123) are a hot p/u!!! I had these installed in my 73-75 Jazz soon after they came out. I was trully impressed. The funk was in da house!!!!! Lost that Sunburst axe to the pawn shop in Newport News, VA on Warwick Blvd right outside of the (new) back gate to Ft Eustis.

I'm offering a reward for this guitar. It's the sentimental value, my first REAL guitar. Shoot me a message for info. Thanks.
 
#845
Thanks to Smash for his great reviews, other posters for adding their experiences, and especially RaginRog for his excellent sound clips and videos. I just ordered a set of Dimarzio Model J's for my Squier Jazz bass. I am looking for a more old school classic rock sound and like the P vibe sound flavor as demoed in RR's videos.

The stock pickups have a noticeable hum if you aren't playing or don't have your fingers suppressing the string. A bonus was ordering them today, I received an extra Jackson off the purchase price, although they are backordered for a few weeks.

It's great threads like these that help people make informed decisions when they are unable to try out various equipment. Where I live, there isn't a whole lot of anything to chose from...

:)
 
#848
How about some pickups for a 5-string active jazz that are not super bright? I recently got a Mike Lull M5 with SD single coils, and damn, there is a lot of high end, even with pure nickel strings. I like the crisp attack, and a little sparkle up top, but mostly I want a clean, deep tone. Maybe the Bartolini 59CBJD1 ?

(I like my pickups like my women ... not too bright, and with a big bottom)
 
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#849
RaginRog said:
This reply is to profess my love for the set of SD Antiquity II pickups I just installed in my 2011 AS Fender Jazz. Great even tone, with a little "air" and grit and growl. Wow.
Click to expand...

After digging around in the darker, foggier, recesses of my brain I'm pretty sure I swapped out the stock pick ups on my Hwy One for Antiquity IIs. They definitely are a nice set of pick ups. That said, I'm trying a set of Lollars.

If I can figure out how to get my MOTU 4Pre working with Cubase Artist 6 I'll post a before and after comparison. I'm a total newb to both and after having a Mac and Garage Band for years I'm finding the PC world a little more complicated. :hmm:
 
#851
I am new here but thought I might share my thoughts. I have been striving for years to get more out of my 77 jazz. In the early 80's I had guit ctr install some active emg pickups. Believe it or not they kept my original pickups. That was a long time ago but I still haven't gotten over it. Anyway moving on, about 6 months ago I installed an Aguilar OBP-3 preamp. It took some creative modifications installing the electronics, battery, and extra eq knob without damaging any portion or part of the bass.. I can honestly say the tone control and additional lows are amazing. The Aguilar preamp combined with some early 80's active emg's hit the spot. In fact the lows punch so hard I have to hold it back to about 75% or my amp speakers over extend themselves. My opinion based on experience is the tone is foundl in the electronics and a very small percentage of tone is in the wood or bass design. My alembic and stingray are very sad to be sitting in the corner wondering how they got dumped for someone twice their age. :crying:
 
#853
wateroftyne said:
I fancy a change from the Fralin split-coils I have in my '71 Jazz at the moment, so tomorrow I'll have some Antiquity II's to install. I'll let you know how it turns out...
Click to expand...

You will not be disappointed...I sold my split coil Fralins for some Ant II. I even have them in 2 of my basses.
 
#854
Thanks Rog!

Here's a question to everyone - how microphonic is 'too' microphonic?

I've got the Antiquities installed and they sound great, but they're picking up the sound of my fingers rubbing on the cases. I've never really noticed it before.

I've got a gig tomorrow so I'll see what they're like in the 'real' world, but I'm wondering if I should be expecting silence, or if I'm over-reacting.

Thanks!
 
#856
wateroftyne said:
Panic over - I've just had a nice email from a chap at SD who has confirmed that they're not potted, and a bit of contact noise is normal. Panic over!
Click to expand...

I never really noticed, no complaints from me and I have them in 2 basses. Both basses are shielded, so they are both relatively quiet to my ears. How do you like the tone?
 
#859
Great thread.

I have ordered a set of Nordy Nj5 70s wind to replace the stock pups in my Carvin SB5000 (ash/maple, 70s pup placement). The reason is I want bit fuller sounding pup than the really bright Carvin pups, but want to maintain that 70s marcus miller type slap tone.

Question: will the NJ5s in 70s wind give me that marcus miller top end? A lot of you say it's mid heavy, more of a rock sound, etc.

So love to hear your thoughts.
 
#860
Hi everyone,

Just thought I'd share some sound clips I took before and after with my Passive Warwick Corvette Ash bass with J-Style Pickups. While I really did like the tone of the Passive MEC Dynamic Correction single coil pickups, they were just way too noisy (EMI/RFI/60 Hz) for me. I tried shielding the cavities with little success. Warwick Corvette Passive pickups are not reverse wound, so noise is a big problem.

I replaced the pickups with Delano JMVC's split coil humbuckers. The first thing I noticed when I installed the Delano's was that they were WAY hotter than the MEC Dynamic Corrections. I had to lower the input gain of my mic pre by 10dB to keep from clipping it. Pickup height was kept exactly the same for the sake of this experiment (very high), but I will probably mess with it more later and lower the new Delano pickups.

Signal chain is Warwick Corvette Ash Passive bass --> Great River MP-500NV Mic Pre, Hi-Z input --> Apogee Ensemble --> Logic 9. No EQ, compression or signal processing was used.

As far as noise was concerned, I am extremely happy with the results. The noise floor dropped about 31dB with the new pickups, which is absolutely huge. Here is the before and after picture of the noise test I did where I cranked up the gain on the Great River preamp to 60dB of gain, turned my bass volume all of the way up and turned 180 degrees back and forth in my basement with fluorescent can lights to get a sense of the EMI/RFI buzz. The top track is the MEC's, the bottom track is the Delano's.

I noticed I can only post 2 attachments at a time, so I will upload the audio files in Reply Posts.
 

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