• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Lindy Fralin Pickups!

RocketMusic

RocketMusic

Gold Supporting Member
Commercial User
Oct 31, 2007
10,754
8,929
Blacksburg, VA
www.rocketmusic.net
Disclosures
Owner, Rocket Music
#1
I received my first shipment of Lindy Fralin P-Bass pickups today!

I've got all of the available winds in stock now (standard, -5%, +5% and +10%), and those are all consolidated in a single item on my website. Just choose the winding you want and add it to the shopping cart.

These pickups come with black covers by default, but I also have spare white and cream covers here. I haven't figured out how to make the website let you tell me which color you want yet, so for now just email me ([email protected]) or PM me here if you place an order and want something other than black. Just send that message quickly, please, because I do often ship within a few minutes of the order arriving. Heck, maybe send me the message first and THEN place your order. :)

Fralin makes all sorts of pickups, and I plan to add more as cash flow permits. There are J sets, PJ sets, and lots of guitar pickups. Let me know if any of that is of interest to you, and I'll try to order your particular flavor sooner rather than later.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bighands Bill, pcake, 4stringfarley and 4 others
#2
I finally made some time do a pickup swap with my main player, a Lull P4. I pulled out a Honey Badger P pickup, and I replaced it with a Fralin P-BASS 10% overwind.

The Honey Badger pickup was a prototype they were working on right before they shut down. I never got any technical details about it, but they were all super excited about it and asked me to try it. I've been very happily running that pickup for something like 4-5 years now I would guess. I thought it sounded great (and it does sound great), but I usually had to work a bit to control the low end and clear up the sound. There was a LOT of low end coming off the pickup, so a Broughton high pass filter pedal was pretty much mandatory. Even then, I would still have to find some midrange frequencies to boost (usually 800-ish and/or 1.5k-ish) to achieve adequate clarity in a band setting. Nothing too extreme, but I did feel like I was having to work a little bit to be heard in my various bands.

I just finished the install of the overwound Fralin and played through my rig by myself for a few minutes. The Fralin +10% definitely sounds to me like a hotter wind than the Honey Badger must be. To me, a hotter wind generally results in less low end and less high end, in other words a more pronounced midrange. And that's definitely the case here, I can already tell that my low end is a little more muted compared to my midrange now. I'm stoked about this and can't wait for my rehearsal on Wednesday to try this. I think this might be just what the doctor ordered!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bighands Bill, One Way, Ricky Rioli and 2 others
#3
A number of years back,
I was visiting Mike Lull,
And he had his shoreline gold P4 w/Brazilian rosewood fretboard there, as was the norm.

He said he had a special LF pickup in it, that was the result of "wanting more Oomph from the D & G strings"
It accomplished that, but I never got any further details.
Lindy and Spencer Lull might know the deets.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RocketMusic
#8
Even before last night's full band rehearsal, I could tell just practicing by myself playing along with various albums that my sound was just sitting better in a mix. I was playing at home after everyone went to bed, so trying to be as quiet as possible. Where that used to be me struggling to hear myself 'cause I was producing mainly low end, now the tone just seems to sit in a higher and more musically useful frequency range.

The new tone is by no means thin, I still have plenty of roundness and warmth all over the neck. It feels like I just shaved a bunch of sub-100 Hz content. The top might be a little smoother sounding, too, but it's the change to the low end that is blowing up my skirt. Hello, kick drum. I've missed you!
 
  • Like
Reactions: jwindham and Joshua
#10
ugly_bassplayer said:
Does the P bass overwound have less highs and more lows like the J sets?

I have a really old Fralin P in one of my bass. Before they even offered overwounds.
Excellent pickups

:)
Click to expand...

It sounds to me like it's less lows for sure, and probably less highs. Which is another way of saying more prominent midrange.
 
#11
RocketMusic said:
26583402[/URL], member: 102306"]It sounds to me like it's less lows for sure, and probably less highs. Which is another way of saying more prominent midrange.
Click to expand...
Maybe the previous prototype you had installed had over prominent lows??
Seems to me like it was voiced “weird”.

Now you finally have something balanced and fits good in a mix.

I’ve been wanting to try the J singles +10% for quite some time now.
 
#12
Yeah, I suspect the Honey Badger pickup is probably more like Fralin's standard wind or maybe their 5% underwound. Unless the Honey Badger folks were being adventurous with the magnet or something beyond just the number of winds. Unfortunately, I have no idea what they actual did to make it so great in their minds. This Honey Badger pickup might be the perfect pickup if you have an instrument that sounds sort of thin to begin with.

BTW - I should repeat that the Honey Badger pickup I'm talking about was a prototype that never made it to market. They stopped operating before they had a chance to introduce the product. So if anyone has a Honey Badger pickup in their bass, it's almost certainly not this design. Rest easy and enjoy your pickup. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ricky Rioli and ugly_bassplayer
#14
Having swapped my LB-100 from Pro Steels to Chromes, I'm wanting to replace the Dimarzio pickup — Dimarzio + Chromes is too much of a good thing, and is getting boring fast.

So I've been looking for something that will give the Chromes a more spacious airy context, with a clean responsive attack.

I just found this video comparing the standard Lindy Fralin with the Fender Pure Vintage '63. I've read that the PV63 is a bit overwound, and it advertises itself as having thick mids.

The strings are broken-in 45–100 Chromes, making the video especially useful for me:



YES, this is exactly what I need!
 
  • Like
Reactions: One Way
#15
Ricky Rioli said:
Having swapped my LB-100 from Pro Steels to Chromes, I'm wanting to replace the Dimarzio pickup — Dimarzio + Chromes is too much of a good thing, and is getting boring fast.

So I've been looking for something that will give the Chromes a more spacious airy context, with a clean responsive attack.

I just found this video comparing the standard Lindy Fralin with the Fender Pure Vintage '63. I've read that the PV63 is a bit overwound, and it advertises itself as having thick mids.

The strings are broken-in 45–100 Chromes, making the video especially useful for me:



YES, this is exactly what I need!
Click to expand...


Cool, I've got that in stock! I also have the 5% underwind, the 5% overwind and the 10% overwind. I've got the 10% overwind in my main player (a Lull P4), and I LOVE it. It is more mid focused, or as I think of it less bass heavy. I was getting too much low end with my previous pickup, and the Fralin 10% overwind cured that for me. I assume it's a spectrum with these various winds with the 10% over being the most mid focused and the 5% under being the least mid focused, but I have not actually done any experimenting to prove that to myself.

I've also got the three pickup cover color choices in stock: black is the default, but I also have white and cream covers available that I could substitute. There's not currently a way to indicate your cover color preference through a website order, so the thing to do is place the order and then quickly (i.e. before I ship it) let me know if you prefer a cover other than black. PM me, email me ([email protected]) or call me at 540-961-7655.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Joshua and bdgotoh
#18
Notwithstanding the professions of love for the 10% overwound version, I've gone for the stock winding as heard in that demo.

Playing my current Chromes+Dimarzio combo, I've been wondering if what I really want with Chromes is a Jazz, adding a bit of bridge pickup bite. But this LB-100 is an absolute dream to play, especially with Chromes, so I'd rather find the solution in a pickup.

On my multi-effects box of fake amps, fake cabs, fake everything else is a fake Xotic RC [ = Really Clean] Booster. With the treble and bass turned down a little, it gives a lovely mids warmth. If need be, I can use that to balance the clarity of the Fralin.
 
#19
Woo hoo!! I figured out how to get my website to let you tell me what pickup cover you want when you buy a Fralin P-BASS pickup now. That first drop down box for the Output is built-in shopify GUI driven by the underlying product information, so nothing special. But that second drop down box (for the Cover Color) was programmed from scratch by me to give you the appropriate color choices and add a comment to the order so I know which color you choose.

Man, that was a chore, but this was a nagging little thing that made me not want to go crazy stocking pickups until it was resolved. Now I feel good about adding more pickups, so it's time to get busy with that! Fralin, Suhr, Anderson, etc.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ricky Rioli
#20
I think it's probably time to move into J-bass territory with Fralin next. This is where it gets complicated...

Fralin is really a custom pickup maker. His primary business model, I suspect, may be selling direct. Folks order through his website, and then he delivers pickups made to order with 3-4 weeks. Part of the appeal to me of stocking his pickups is that I can have them available to ship today (assuming I have them in stock). That's a great selling point.

Where it gets complicated is the way Fralin sells stuff, especially when there are 2 or more pickups involved that could make a set. You can buy individual pickups at one price, or you can buy a set at a reduced price. Then you've got the 4 different output levels/winds. Then you've got the two different bridge pickup standards for J-basses (either longer than the neck pickup or the same size as the neck pickup). Then you can have raised center pole pieces or not. Then you can have single coils or split coils. 4-string or 5-string. Woof. Put all that in a matrix, and it turns into a TON of possible pickups.

So what do I stock? Sets? That's certainly more attractive from a price standpoint (both for me and for you). Individual pickups? That offers maximum flexibility (you could mix and match stuff, or you could buy just one J pickup if that's all you need), but then there's the price penalty. The obvious choice is to stock both, of course, but then I'm just tying up lots of capital in lots of redundant stuff.

My instinct is to go with sets, at least initially. And the 4-string hum-cancelling split coil design I would imagine is the most popular. So with those things decided, then it becomes a question of how to present all of these other options in a logical and organized fashion. The first dividing line I decided on is whether the pickups have Raised Centers or not. That lead me to create these two new items on my website:

Lindy Fralin SPLIT JAZZ 4-String Bass Pickup Set
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

From there, it's a pretty simple process to add options in each of those items for the Output/Wind level and the bridge pickup size. There are 4 different outputs and 2 different sizes, so that means there are 8 different pickups sets I need to stock for each item. The pickup cover colors are interchangeable, so I don't really have to stock even more pickups to accommodate that. I'll just keep a stash of the various color pickup covers on hand, and I can substitute as needed.

So that's 16 different sets of pickups with a street value of $280 each. And that's just the 4-string split coil design! Do that again for the single coils, then do it again for the 5-string sets. LOL Yikes!

Oh, well, I can only do what I can do. I'm satisfied that I've thought this through pretty clearly. I'm happy with my decision to stock just 4-string split coil J-bass sets for now, and I'm happy with how I've organized the items on my website. Now I just need to lay my hands on some money and start ordering a few sets, eventually reaching the point where I have them all. Then move on to single coils or whatever else once that's done.

Ya'll let me know if I'm crazy!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ricky Rioli

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back