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mixing pickup styles

W

Wade10987

Sep 27, 2011
246
2
38
Tampa, FL
#1
hello all,

I play a CIJ Jaguar. I have a Seymour Duncan Hot Jazz bridge PU from another project. Could I install that on the Jaguar and put a SD Quarter Pounder in the neck spot? I often use the bridge pickup isolated so it would be cool to have slightly different Seymour Duncans for more tonal flexibility and contrast. I was looking at the tone charts on SD's website and it looks like the Hot has more mids and the QP is has more bass. I think they would compliment each other nicely. Does anybody have any experiences with mixing pickups like this?
 
#3
Not those particular pups, but yes. There's no reason at all not to try it. See if you can get the 1/4-pounder in reverse wind-reverse polarity to your existing pup so they hum-cancel when they're both at full.

Sounds to me like it might be a good combination, but you may need to sink that neck pickup all the way down into the body to get the outputs even. The 1/4 pounders are pretty hot and the neck pup is always going to need to be farther from the strings, all other things being equal.
 
#6
The name of that pickup is "Hot", and the output is, in fact hot, but the output from a Quarter-Pounder is also very hot. As David pointed out, the strings vibrate in a much wider arc over the neck pickup so it's good practice to go with bridge pickups that have hotter outputs than the neck pickups. In your case, the neck pup will be too hot to adjust them to sound even.

I thought you could get away with it by adjusting the neck pup way down from the strings, but David knows his pickups pretty durn well and if he thinks you wouldn't have enough room to adjust them evenly, I tend to defer to his judgement.
 
#7
Wade10987 said:
I am a little confused. You are both talking about the neck/QPer being hot. But the other is the Hot, literally.

SGD Lutherie, is Lo-E right about just sinking the neck pickup a little?
Would that help to balance these pickups?
Click to expand...

Well looking at the specs, the Hot Jazz bridge is 16.6 k. The Hot Jazz neck is 15.02 k, so the Quarter Pounder neck is less, at 13.9 k, so they should balance fine.

That sounds like it would be mud to me, but that could be what you are looking for. :D I just don't like Quarter Pounders very much.
 
#8
Hahahaha I am not looking for mud. Just contrast. I like the idea of having the hot, snappy bridge pickup, and then having a bassier, heavier tone with the neck pickup.

What do you mean mud? when I play with them together? How would they sound isolated?
 
#10
SGD Lutherie said:
By mud I would mean lack of high end and too much low end.
Click to expand...

Yea, but that would only be on one end. Then at the bridge I could jump to a snappier tone.

No offense, but mud is a really biased word to use. If its an issue of lack of clarity or quality, than I understand. But calling the tone muddy just because its a deeper sounding pickup? Are you a Jazz bass guy who doesn't prefer the tone of P basses? Just trying to understand where you are coming from...
 
#11
Wade10987 said:
No offense, but mud is a really biased word to use. If its an issue of lack of clarity or quality, than I understand. But calling the tone muddy just because its a deeper sounding pickup? Are you a Jazz bass guy who doesn't prefer the tone of P basses? Just trying to understand where you are coming from...
Click to expand...

No, maybe you want mud. That's OK. I like Gibson mudbuckers. "Muddy" is a commonly used term to describe pickups. It's often a quality people don't like, but it's a commonly used word.

My idea is that if you have a warm, but clear neck pickup, you have more note definition. Then if you want to darken it up, you have ways to do that, either with a passive tone control or a preamp.

You can have a deep sounding neck pickup that still have a bright top end. When you over wind a pickup like the QP, you move the resonant peak down to the upper mids. I find this gives a harsh top end, and is one reason I never liked the QPs. It's probably the only Duncan pickup I don't care for.

And P basses are not muddy either. They are very middy sounding, and actually don't have a very extended low end or top end. But it's a nice warm tone. They are also brighter than people think. If you over wind a P bass pickup then it will get muddy.

I voiced my ND3 neck pickups to sound like P basses. But they have more top end, while retaining the warm low end. So they are deep and clear. They are so clear that you don't even need to mix in a bridge pickup.

The thing is that Jazz pickups were designed to be bright. That's why they are tall and narrow. Leo was hard of hearing, and he liked very bright pickups. You can see that with the Musicman and G&L pickups. But you can make a fatter Jazz pickup without overwinding it to death. I did that by making it a dual rail humbucker. Bartolini does it differently.

A lot of people like the QPs, but I never cared for them.
 
#12
Ok SGD Lutherie, I really appreciate you input but I ended up a little confused. I already own the SD Hot Jazz bridge PU. I have never heard it. It has never been installed on anything. I play a very wide range of music. Mostly for my self. Some of the songs I have learned recently are Billie Jean, The Peanuts theme: Linus and Lucy, The Trolololo song, and even some metal.

My idea was to simply have the Hot Jazz in the bridge for twang and more Jaco tones, then have a darker, more thick and low PU in the neck.
Do you think I can just buy the Hot Jazz neck and roll the tone knob back for some heavy tones. I am just looking for a wide range of style. Twangy and poppy all the way to darker and more mellow.
 
#13
if you only have the hot J, there's no point in getting anything besides the matching neck pickup. they're designed specifically to sound right when you switch from one to the other, and to hum-cancel when they're both on.
 

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