Just had Aguilar PJ pickups installed in my Fodera Yin Yang Standard I

…and everything is working great! For anyone considering replacing the active EMG PJs with passive pickups in this bass, here at the pitfalls:

- You need to have your tech drill a hole from the bridge to the control cavity for a ground wire. The stock EMGs don’t need this, so there is no pre-drilled hole in the YYS.

- You need to run a ground wire from the bridge to the Pope balancer board.

- There are two jumpers to remove on the balancer board to allow passive pickups to work with the Pope preamp.

- The Aguilar P pickup wiring needs to be reversed when attaching to the balancer board. Don’t know why, but it does, otherwise the pickups will be out of phase.

This agrees with and consolidates everything I read in these forums regarding how to make this work, and all of it was in fact needed in the pickup swap.

The resulting sound is flexible and organic. It’s not a dual coil sound, so it won’t make it sound like a Monarch standard. Both pickups are very musical when panned fully bridge or neck; the PJ position (50% pan) is sweet for both basslines and soloing, with the passive tone knob allowing you to stand out or lay back. The only thing I don’t like (because I’m used to my Sire V7 and F Bass BN4) is that slapping doesn’t sound as good, but I can live with that.

I chose the Aguilars based on George Furlanetto’s (F Bass) endorsement of their use in his VF basses, and I’m really digging the result of bringing them together with the quality construction and preamp of a Fodera.

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