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King Koa - Now With Nordy's!

#421
Oh, and just to relate this back to King Koa - I now love the sound of my Lull so much that I've got a set of the NJ5F (the "Fender" sized 5-string single coils) for King Koa. My hopes are high that those will be the last pickups I ever put in that bass. :rollno::D

Pair that with either the Aguilar OBP-1 or a Suhr 2-band preamp... mmmmm, I have high hopes.
 
#428
Greg,
Here's a link to Lollar guitars. I've installed them a few times in some vintage guitars and the players just raved about how good they sound.
I hear that their jazz and P bass pickups are really nice sounding and based on the sound clips on their site they do sound good.
They also do custom wound pickups if you can adequately describe the sound that you're after. They also have excellent customer support based on my experiences.


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#429
Greg - I think you're on the right track with the NJ5 in both basses. OBP-1 in the Lull, and the Suhr if you can get it for King Koa. Then if all goes well, the flats go back on the lull and King Koa becomes the "modern" flavoured one.

Having played both of those basses (pre single coil installation) that's my 2 cents (Canadian).

Plus then I can scoop those Aguilar 5J-HC out of King Koa :p
 
#430
Hey Greg, what 3 knob preamp have you tried with the Nordstand NJ P/U's that you like the best?

I'm wanting something that will still allow me to have a passive mode but I'm really missing the EQ capability of and active pre.


Have you tried the J-Retro or Aggie OBP-2?
What's the difference between the OBP-1 & 2? I've only installed the OBP1 & 3 in basses.

Thx!
 
#431
JOME77 said:
Hey Greg, what 3 knob preamp have you tried with the Nordstand NJ P/U's that you like the best?

I'm wanting something that will still allow me to have a passive mode but I'm really missing the EQ capability of and active pre.


Have you tried the J-Retro or Aggie OBP-2?
What's the difference between the OBP-1 & 2? I've only installed the OBP1 & 3 in basses.

Thx!
Click to expand...

I've got the OBP-1 in my Lull with the NJ5 single coils, and I absolutely love it.

The OBP-1 is boost only for both the treble and bass controls, while the OBP-2 is boost/cut on both. That leads lots of folks to add a passive tone control with the OBP-1 so that treble can be rolled off. I didn't do that on my Lull, and I can honestly say I don't miss it. I tend to boost both the bass & the treble about 25%, and cutting the treble back to 0 is all the rolloff I need.

The center frequencies are also a bit different:

OBP-1: 40 Hz (bass) and 4 kHz (treble)
OBP-2: 40 Hz (bass) and 6.5 kHz (treble)

I just received a set of Nordstrand Big Splits to put in my fretless, and I'm planning to also install an OBP-3 when I do the pickup swap (removing the Bart NTMB). I've tried my darndest to like the NTMB, but I just don't get along with it. I've yet to try the OBP-3, so we'll see how that goes.

I also just received a set of Nordstrand NJ5F pickups for King Koa. Depending on how my fretless experiment goes, I'll either put the OBP-1 or the OBP-3 in King Koa.
 
#432
Thanks Greg! For some reason I thought that Aguilar only made an OBP-1 & 3. It sounds like for the options that I want (passive mode and a blend control) the OBP-2 is the best 3-knob choice.

I've tried to like the 2 volume control setting but I tend to zero in on a blend and want to turn up or down from time to time and that's a real pain with 2 volumes.

On the subject of you trying the Aggie OBP-3, the only Roscoe that I liked it on had the Nord DC pickups. I think that the Aggie pre's just work well with Nord p/u's (although I'm not sure how I'd like them in a fretless.) I tend to prefer the more compressed tone of the Bart's on a fretless.
I'll be interested to see how you like Nord Big splits in your fretless. You may find yourself trying to generate some mids.
 
#433
I agree with Joe about the Aggie pre and Nord DC's. They really seemed to fit together well. I'm not really feeling the Nord/Pope combo I have now. I think most of that is because of how transparent the Pope is. I find myself EQing the pre to more emulate the compression of the Aggie.
 
#435
I've had the OBP-1 and OBP-2 with the same pickups and wood combinations and there is a definite difference. The OBP-1 treble is more "meaty" whereas the boost on the -2 (and -3 which is the same as an OBP-2 with a mid control) is more "glassy"

The bass boost sounds about the same, but the -1 seems more natural overall to me.
 
#436
Jeff Moote said:
I've had the OBP-1 and OBP-2 with the same pickups and wood combinations and there is a definite difference. The OBP-1 treble is more "meaty" whereas the boost on the -2 (and -3 which is the same as an OBP-2 with a mid control) is more "glassy"

The bass boost sounds about the same, but the -1 seems more natural overall to me.
Click to expand...

The 01 sounds like the pre to go with from your description!
 
#437
madbassplaya said:
I've got Nordstrand DC's running passive but if I were to put a preamp in this bass I'd probably go Nordy or Aguilar.

What fretless are you putting Splits in?
Click to expand...

They're going in my Roscoe Century Sig V fretless. This is it with the Roscoe Bart pickups and the NTMB.

3006-BARTS-BODY.jpg


I've since gone back to my old Nordstrand Dual Coils and the NTMB, but I think something's wrong with the bridge pickup (like I'm only getting one of the two coils). Meh - I want to head in the single coil direction anyway, and a split coil humbucker (the Big Splits, in this instance) can get pretty close...

I'm really enjoying the clarity of single coils with my Lull. The low end is not as dominant (and muddy), and the highs are nice and open. I want to have that on all of my basses. I would have gone straight to single coils with the fretless but for the fact that I usually bias towards the bridge when I play fretless. If I can find a fretless tone I like without noise, I'll be happiest... but if it has to be a true single coil, I'll go there in the end.
 
#439
OK Greg, I've got something that I'm really thinking of trying and my first thought was "I bet Greg has tried this, or at least looked into it".

Have you checked out the Stellartone (ToneStyler)?

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This sounds really interesting! And to make it even cooler, checkout out the following wiring for a 3-knob passive configuration (Master Vol, P/U Blend & 6 or 10 position tone control (StellarTone 6 or 10)).

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Do you know anyone that's tried it in a Jazz style bass?
 

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