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least noisy J pu for bridge position

Mr M

Mr M

Jun 15, 2001
961
27
Espedair street, Istanbul
#1
First of all, is it possible to play a J pu on bridge position alone without extreme trebles? Or is it something included for free :D in the J pu's?

I know it's closer to the bridge and it's normal to have accent on the treble but there should be a hum-free, sweet sounding J pu..

Back to the main question: What's the least noisy, treble-free (I mean annoying extreme treble) J pu have you ever tried?

I'm gonna choose a silent, hum-free, noiseless J for my new bass with j-p pu's.
On my old bass, I've recently had installed Seymour Duncan Hotstack J to work with SD quarter pound P. Hotstack should be hum-free but there is always that annoying hum. Plus it sounds too treble accented. So when on the blend knob I go all bridge, I have to cut the treble all the way down (the circuit is a SD too). So I use the bridge pu for 10% on the blend, and that's all. I try to find a solution that this doesn't happen on my new bass too. Or maybe it's better that I take the bridge pu and put Angelina Jolie pictures instead :D :D

Just to add, on my old bass I've shielded the control cavity as well as the pu cavities. I've grounded all those to jack ground. The bridge is already grounded, so practically I've done everything to stop or at least reduce the hum. But they didn't work. :(
 
#2
Mr M said:
First of all, is it possible to play a J pu on bridge position alone without extreme trebles? Or is it something included for free :D in the J pu's?

I know it's closer to the bridge and it's normal to have accent on the treble but there should be a hum-free, sweet sounding J pu..

Back to the main question: What's the least noisy, treble-free (I mean annoying extreme treble) J pu have you ever tried?

I'm gonna choose a silent, hum-free, noiseless J for my new bass with j-p pu's.
On my old bass, I've recently had installed Seymour Duncan Hotstack J to work with SD quarter pound P. Hotstack should be hum-free but there is always that annoying hum. Plus it sounds too treble accented. So when on the blend knob I go all bridge, I have to cut the treble all the way down (the circuit is a SD too). So I use the bridge pu for 10% on the blend, and that's all. I try to find a solution that this doesn't happen on my new bass too. Or maybe it's better that I take the bridge pu and put Angelina Jolie pictures instead :D :D

Just to add, on my old bass I've shielded the control cavity as well as the pu cavities. I've grounded all those to jack ground. The bridge is already grounded, so practically I've done everything to stop or at least reduce the hum. But they didn't work. :(
Click to expand...

FWIW:

shielding is for external interference and hum is internal. Apparently single coils are more receptive to external interference as well cause shielding and ground plates can help reduce the overall noise in single coils.

Even some HB pups will have some hum, some more than others. If you've done all you can to shut them up and there's no external interference and the building is up to electrical code without defect, whatever you've got is as good as it gets.

J's put out a broad spectrum of tones: some are dark, some bright, most in between. Depends on the J. Barts typically have a stunted top end and are not bright.

I play bridge pup only almost exclusively with few exceptions (mostly for reviews). If a bridge pup is too bright, just add neck pup to take the edge off to suite taste. I typically keep pups that work in the bridge position well without need for a neck pup. It's not a rare occurrence in a J, probably about a third of them I've had.

Regardless, you can change or install a capacitor to vary the bass/treble response as much as you want. .0475 mfd is typcially bass cap value; the larger number the darker the tone, the smaller the value the brighter the tone. They are cheap and readily available, at least in the U.S.

Onboard preamps or inline pre's like a Sans di typically throw a filter/muffled quality into tone cutting the edge off highs and reducing noise - both of which are in your favor.

If nothing else works, there's always active pickups.
 
#9
Thanks all,

I could go with Fender noiseless. BTW is there two sort of Fender noiseless? I remember seeing on TB that there were ones w/ceramic and w/something else...

SD Hot stack J (which is on my old bass) is a stacked pu anyway. The luthier said that the problem could be caused by the circuit which I bought 2nd hand, that's maybe why I'm having problems with the J.
 
#10
Mr M said:
Thanks all,

I could go with Fender noiseless. BTW is there two sort of Fender noiseless? I remember seeing on TB that there were ones w/ceramic and w/something else...

SD Hot stack J (which is on my old bass) is a stacked pu anyway. The luthier said that the problem could be caused by the circuit which I bought 2nd hand, that's maybe why I'm having problems with the J.
Click to expand...

FWIW:

yeh the ceramic thing was my post. Never did find out. Actually forgot about it till now. My guess is somebody removed them from the one set (they're just adhered to the bottom so not hard to do) or Fender installed them for the Victor Bailey Bass. Don't know.

Some humbuckers will make noise. Wire it straight to the jack and find out if it's the pup. If it doesn't hum it's not the pup and is apparently in the circuitry. If it does hum then probably the harness is not the issue. Unless you just want to buy more stuff, wisdom would dictate the problem be isolated to the part before buying a replacement for it.

Sometimes you can just swap the leads and eliminate the hum. If fact are you sure it's even wired in humbucking mode? It may not be.
 
#11
a couple of thoughts...

as mentioned previously, shielding counts

Not all Dimarzio's are quiet and some are quite brittle sounding

Single coils are inherently noisier than dual coil rp/rw style pickups. They are also generally punchier. A big part of the J bridge pickup sound is the punch!

I run three basses with J bridge pickups. Two are traditional single coil, designs from Duncan and Aero one is a more modern quiet design from Bill Lawrence. All three are useful but the quieter design is, well quieter. it is also a very clear/transparent/un-colored pickup. So... to tame it I used a higher numerical capacitor to bleed off some of the additional *apparent* highs.

That pickup is a Bill Lawrence J45. IIRC I'm running a .22 rather than a .047 cap on the tone control. BL recommends trying different cap values and it's good advice. Most folks doing a pickup swap are going to leave the cap value alone and that might be a real mistake.

The lawrence pickup takes a while to get, but it's a real nice pickup for very low dough. Check 'em out.
 
#14
Hi, This is my first post here. I am also looking for the right bridge pickup (for my oddball PJ bass) - hope to find it someday.

"The other noiseless Fender that you guys forget to metion is the samarium-cobalt one"

This makes me wonder if Bill Lawrence is producing samarium-cobalt bass pickups for Fender. I'm pretty sure he designed and has been manufacturing the samarium-cobalt noiseless strat pickups for Fender.

Peace,
S
 

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