They certainly did at one point. Most places online seem to be "out of stock." I know Stratosphere still has pickguards loaded with them.
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Lindy Fralin P vs Fender V-Mod?
- Thread starter Ögon
- Start date
They certainly did at one point. Most places online seem to be "out of stock." I know Stratosphere still has pickguards loaded with them.
I recently lost the opportunity to buy a used American Standard P bass with Custom Shop 62 pickup and regret it.
I think that the reason behind the V-mod pickup on the P and J American Professional basses is just marketing crap.
The idea of the V-mod pickup was developed by Fender engineer Tim Shaw for the Strat and Tele Am Pro using THREE types of alnico magnets: Alnico II, Alnico III, and Alnico V.
These magnets "blends" may be logical considering especially the pickups in a Strat, where you have a 6 string instrument with 3 pickups.
Trying to apply this concept to the bass, especially the Precision, with its ONE pickup in the sweet spot, is nonsense.
Anyway, the Pro series had to be thrown in the market with some identifiable characteristics (again, marketing!) so Fender went for this "magical" magnet blend on the basses as well.
Then you read of people who bought the Am Pro P bass and either reversed the V-mod pickup as that Alnico II/Alnico V thing was a design flaw, or simply swapped the V-mod pickup for a better pickup.
I believe the V-mod P pickup has been an afterthought marketing gimmick.
Moreover, if mixing Alnico magnets is such a good idea why didn't they apply the same principle (A2/A5) on the Yosemite pickups for the American Performer series? And why not applying this magical blend of Alnico II/Alnico V for the Player series, where Fender now states "Fender Alnico 5 Precision split-coil pickup"?
And, since the Am Pro series came out in 2017, why no other pickup builder went along for the A2/A5 ride?
As a side note, Thomann, who is first online music instruments retailer here in Europe, is currently listing only one model of Am Pro P in white and one model of Am Pro J in sunburst. No other color options. I wonder if the flagship series of Fender basses is going to be renewed, maybe discontinuing the V-mod pickups, which are the only "odd" thing in an otherwise great bass (I would like to buy a brand new Am Pro Pbass in sunburst and swap the pickup for a CS 62).
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interesting, and as someone who bangs on his instruments like a caveman this jibes with my experience with alnico II magnets as well, in everything from teles to les pauls;
the A2 has a sweet smooth sound when you play it gently but "squishes" when you hit it hard, the bottom end feels "spongy". A5 is "sturdier", it responds with more bottom and a nice punchy tone when you lay into it.
anyway the fralin stock-wind P rules over all others! it's bigger with more highs and lows and grind and everything else without actually being "overwound" or otherwise weird.
i run mine with 500k pots for extra aggression, that works wonderfully with a little compression and amp grit and if i want more old-school tone i can bump my tone knob back to like "7".
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I bought an American Professional P from a member hear about a year and a half ago. I tried to love the V-Mods, but just couldn't. I replaced them with Fralin standard P pickups, which I like...a lot. They are the cleanest, clearest P pups I own, and I find they sit really well in the band mix. I probably prefer the Duncan Antiquity 2 pickups, but they aren't better, just different. There's room in my home for both. You won't regret replacing the V-mods with the Fralins, IMHO.
I've never even heard of the Fender V-Mod, but fwiw I have a bass with the Fralin standard wind, and that thing sits in a mix like some platonic ideal of "bass guitar", the archetypal P Bass sound
...when it's not humming like a bastard.
...when it's not humming like a bastard.
wait, what?I've never even heard of the Fender V-Mod, but fwiw I have a bass with the Fralin standard wind, and that thing sits in a mix like some platonic ideal of "bass guitar", the archetypal P Bass sound
...when it's not humming like a bastard.
a split-coil P pickup? it shouldn't be humming at all, you've got something else going on
At the moment Fender doesn't sell this pickup out of their basses; same as for the PV '64 J pickup.
STRATosphere loaded pickguards are available sometimes (not currently with this kind of pickup) but they aren't cheap if one just wants to carry out a pickup upgrade ..
The fundamental aspect to consider when thinking about swapping a stock pickup is the kind of tone we'd like to get, which (it may be regarded as a simplistic approach, but it's a good simplistic approximation of the truth), in the case of a P-bass, AlNiCo V split-coil pickup is largely related to the pickup's DCR reading.
Want a massive, loud, grindy and bass-oriented tone? Go towards overwound pickups with DCR >= 12kohm.
Want a snappy tone with more highs and high mids? Go towards underwound pickups with DCR < 11kohm.
Want a bit of this and a bit of that? Stay at 11/11.xxkohm.
The Fralin standard (you see it's the standard one, so this simplistic approach isn't so simplistic in the end as pickup manufacturers tend to follow it as well) P-bass pickup has a DCR of 11kohm.
The Lollar standard P-bass pickup has a DCR of 11kohm etc ..
There's a post I made on the Official P-bass Club 8 with a list of AlNiCo V P-bass pickups classified in this way in order to check out some of the available options when looking for a P-bass pickup replacement ...
Want a massive, loud, grindy and bass-oriented tone? Go towards overwound pickups with DCR >= 12kohm.
Want a snappy tone with more highs and high mids? Go towards underwound pickups with DCR < 11kohm.
Want a bit of this and a bit of that? Stay at 11/11.xxkohm.
The Fralin standard (you see it's the standard one, so this simplistic approach isn't so simplistic in the end as pickup manufacturers tend to follow it as well) P-bass pickup has a DCR of 11kohm.
The Lollar standard P-bass pickup has a DCR of 11kohm etc ..
There's a post I made on the Official P-bass Club 8 with a list of AlNiCo V P-bass pickups classified in this way in order to check out some of the available options when looking for a P-bass pickup replacement ...
Put a coat of transparent nail polish onto the exposed poles and you'll solve the problem.
I did this on my ex-Am. Elite P-bass as Fender normally does not ground the pickup poles (even in the case of an Am. Elite or Am. Ultra) and it immediately eliminated the issue.
When the polish coat is worn out you can put another one over.
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I 100% agree with you.
That said, I will say (from a fit and finish standpoint) my American Professional P-Bass is as nice as any bass I've owned (which includes a Mike Lull, Nash PB-63 etc.). Like you said, I think the V-Mod's for bass were a total afterthought. I'm sure Shaw spent a LOT of time on developing the V-Mods for the STRAT, but I'm guessing they spent about five minutes on the P-Bass version. I love Fender, but outside of the Custom Shop 62 from the revived American Standard Line from 2012 - 2016, there stock pickup choices have been questionable at best.
Oops, I'll add in the Pure Vintage 58 and 63 pickups as they both sound great. Then again, you need to purchase a $2,000 instrument to get them stock.
You can buy a PV '63 at a decent price without buying anything else; this is not the case for the PV '58.
I've had an American Pro for a while, it was my first bass. I can't say I didn't love those V-Mods or the bass itself, but E string always sounded too weak and dull. I didn't realize that for a while, but after owning and playing other basses it became more obvious to the point I started to investigate the problem. I ended up selling the bass without regrets because I considered it somehow flawed. After playing other Am. Pro P basses in local music stores I realized that all of them had the same problem. Mine was the worst, but all of them showed the same weak E string.
I just bought an American Original '60 P and the pickup is completely different.
I just bought an American Original '60 P and the pickup is completely different.
Do you mean the Topic on TalkBass called Official P-bass Club part 8? It has like 500 pages, can you send the a link to the actual list/comment?
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So i need some advice. I just put on Rotosound 66 Swingbass (45-105) strings on my pbass with vMod pickup and i like the non broken in sound. Also i tried something sacrilegious, i put on 80/20 bronze Acoustic Elixir bass strings (45-100) on my p-bass with vMods, they sound awesome aswell when they are not broken in, but very low in output volume.. I did notice i loved the tension of the 45-100 80/20's and such a nice smooth feel, they play really easy for me. I read that many people say that both the Roto66 and the Elixir 80/20 are very bright strings when new.
What pickup would add enough brightness to have the non broken in Rotosound 66 / Elixir 80/20 with vMod sound when these strings are broken in? (i hope you understand my question) The pickup should, compared to the vMod, add the certain EQ areas which drop when strings are broken in, like treble and maybe some mids? (im not a sound engineer or knowledgeable in this area yet)
Will the Fralins give me this or are they too bright? They seem quite bright..
There are so many pickups to choose from and i don't want to keep on swapping pickups.. thanks for all your help until now, i really do appreciate it.
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I'm not disagreeing with you at all on that point. I think you are correct.The American Pro series will be either discontinued or modded very soon.
Mark my words
I was just saying that outside of the pickups its a fantastic instrument.
Yeah, the issue isn't the bass its the V-Mod pickups.
Switch the pickups and you'll love the Am Pro.
Yes, apologies if I made myself misunderstood. I also agree with you about the Am Pro being a fantastic instrument as I would have also liked buying one, possibly in sunburst.
I only noticed that no local shops have any more Am Pro P basses available where I live and Thomann has a really thin choice of only one color.
Maybe this concerns only the european market, who knows.
For some reason I have the feeling Fender are either going to discontinue or update the Am Pro with different pickups.
