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Jazz bass pickups output/upgrade

#22
S.D. STK-J2's....great output, tones and quality.
I LOVE these..and quiet too.
Just another 1-1/2 cent opinion.
Congrats on new buy. and a great bass too.

Oh and if you get into playing slightly agressive, these pu's love it.
 
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#24
Hetfield1966 said:
Hello all. I’m after a bit of help. I play a MM Stingray but also recently bought a Japanese Fender Jazz. I love the sound of both of them but the output from the Jazz is a lot less than the MM. To be expected of course but when I take both basses to a gig and change guitars a couple of times during our set I’m having to scrabble around in the dark trying to adjust amp volume settings to compensate for the differing outputs.
Im Therefore thinking of changing the pickups in the Jazz to some with a somewhat higher output. Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders appear to be rated and reviews suggest that I should hear a boost in output, but does anyone here have any experience with this or have any other suggestions. Cheers.
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#27
Geri O said:
Honestly, I’ve owned and still own Jazz basses and Stingrays. My “Jazz” is made by someone else these days and its active electronics are a good bit hotter than my Stingray, to the point of wanting to do what someone else suggested and add a buffer boost-only preamp, but to the Stingray (I need both basses to have very similar output, that’s another topic).

Which brings me to my point. I’ve had a few passive Jazz basses and Stingrays and they were very close in output. Music Man has started that they purposely build the gain lower than most active instruments for that very reason. So I’m surprised to hear of someone needing to boost the output of a passive Jazz “up” to a Stingray. Surprised, but not out of the question, I guess.
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Geri O has an excellent comment here. I own a 3 band USA Stingray and a passive Jazz Bass with Fender '75 reissue pickups. There is not a great difference in output between the two.

You could rewire your Jazz Bass pickups from parallel to series. That will get you more output but you'll be stuck with playing the bridge and neck p/ups together all the time.

I would also think that when switching from 'Ray to J, all you have to do is tweak the gain control on your amp. Fairly easy to do.

Good luck with your issue.
 
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#28
Hetfield1966 said:
Hello all. I’m after a bit of help. I play a MM Stingray but also recently bought a Japanese Fender Jazz. I love the sound of both of them but the output from the Jazz is a lot less than the MM. To be expected of course but when I take both basses to a gig and change guitars a couple of times during our set I’m having to scrabble around in the dark trying to adjust amp volume settings to compensate for the differing outputs.
Im Therefore thinking of changing the pickups in the Jazz to some with a somewhat higher output. Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders appear to be rated and reviews suggest that I should hear a boost in output, but does anyone here have any experience with this or have any other suggestions. Cheers.
Click to expand...
An easy way to deal with this issue is just to use an eq or boost pedal. If you have multiple basses there are products like the source audio programmable eq. That one can save up to 4 presets and you can have volume/eq levels dialed in for each bass. Change the pickups if you want a different tone. But changing pickups is kind of overkill to try to match volume levels of different basses.
 
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#29
bassdude51 said:
Geri O has an excellent comment here. I own a 3 band USA Stingray and a passive Jazz Bass with Fender '75 reissue pickups. There is not a great difference in output between the two.

You could rewire your Jazz Bass pickups from parallel to series. That will get you more output but you'll be stuck with playing the bridge and neck p/ups together all the time.

I would also think that when switching from 'Ray to J, all you have to do is tweak the gain control on your amp. Fairly easy to do.

Good luck with your issue.
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An earlier commenter noted that some MIJ Jazz pickups had notably less output than other Jazz basses. This could be the reason behind the very real disparity I’m Definitely getting between outputs.
Yep, simply turning the volume/gain up n down is a really easy solution to my first world problem, it’s just remembering to always do this (note: I don’t always remember to do this) resulting in a mentally loud stingray, or a far too quiet Jazz that I then have to fiddle about with volume and gain on the amp once the song has started. Anyways, I’m going down the route of a suitable boost pedal. At least this will have a light on it to tell me it’s on.
 
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#30
Nephilymbass said:
An easy way to deal with this issue is just to use an eq or boost pedal. If you have multiple basses there are products like the source audio programmable eq. That one can save up to 4 presets and you can have volume/eq levels dialed in for each bass. Change the pickups if you want a different tone. But changing pickups is kind of overkill to try to match volume levels of different basses.
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Thanks. See earlier posts. I’m on it. Suitable Pedal to be acquired.
 
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#36
One reason I went wireless part of the time is I had 3 basses with way different output...I evened that up with the gain on the transmitters, didn't have to adjust anything when swapping.
 
#37
nickpc said:
If the MM has an active pre-amp you should just be able to turn down the output volume on it a bit to match the Jazz volume, with no change in the sound. That's what I'm able to do with my Sadowsky to match the output to my MIA Jazz.
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This. Just lower the Music Man volume on the bass itself to match the Jazz. Done. And free.
 
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#38
Hetfield1966 said:
Hello all. I’m after a bit of help. I play a MM Stingray but also recently bought a Japanese Fender Jazz. I love the sound of both of them but the output from the Jazz is a lot less than the MM. To be expected of course but when I take both basses to a gig and change guitars a couple of times during our set I’m having to scrabble around in the dark trying to adjust amp volume settings to compensate for the differing outputs.
Im Therefore thinking of changing the pickups in the Jazz to some with a somewhat higher output. Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders appear to be rated and reviews suggest that I should hear a boost in output, but does anyone here have any experience with this or have any other suggestions. Cheers.
Click to expand...

MM StingRays not only have more output than most basses, but have WAY more output. You're going to be hard pressed to come up with a set of J pickups that are as hot as that StingRay pickup/preamp and still sound like a traditional J. You might consider an 18 volt onboard preamp to install in your J. You could also put some kind of preamp pedal between your J and your amp input to add the gain you need. There are a myriad of options that will do this for you ... Aguilar Tone Hammer, Tech 21 VT Bass DI, Sadowsky Outboard Preamp/DI ... just to name a few.
 
#39
IMO the pickups aren’t what’s hotter in the MM, it’s the preamp. MM preamps can be (not always) a bit on the hotter side.

I use mild compression on a compressor pedal. It helps boost my passive basses a tiny bit and subdue the output of the MM so I can more-or-less use the same gain/master settings on my amps.

Some tweaking is still needed but the gap is a lot smaller than without compression.
 
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