Mudbucker Replacing Epiphone T-Bird Neck Pickup, Any Tips?

One word: don't. Do your research on Google. There are several T-bird sized replacement pickups from various manufacturers that will get you the tone you want in the stock positions. If you rout for a pickup too close to the neck and are not careful, you will compromise the structural integrity of the body.

 

Not off the top of my head. Google thunderbird bass pickups.
thunderbird bass pickups - بحث Google

 

this is all the more reason to not rout out a different shape, which the mudbucker may not cover the original rout, and especially with the Barts, you can get a deep tone but still retain definition.

 

Hopefully it’s obvious that wood removal will be required, as the pickup shapes are different.

What may be a little less obvious is the possibility of the mudbucker not completely covering the hole left from the original pickup. This is purely cosmetic.

What’s apparently not obvious at all is how it will sound, both on its own and when combined with the other pickup. For the life of me, I’ll never understand why somebody would want to put the woofiest pickup known to man in the woofiest spot on an instrument. Well, not quite the woofiest; that would be jammed right up against the neck....

Then again, I am a huge lover of top-end zing, and pickups with lots of upper-frequency clarity. I love pickups right up against the neck, as long as they are bright, clear pickups.

Anyway, if you really want to do this, it won’t pose any real structural issue. The amount of wood removal will be small, and the Thunderbird “neck” pickup isn’t very close to the end of the neck.

 

Oddly, I don’t find Dunlop Super Brights to be very bright. I have no idea why they named them that. I’m a DR HiBeam guy.

Mine sure was. I couldn’t pull it out fast enough. It was mounted in a 34” scale (“long scale”) bass, right around the middle, approximately where a P bass pickup would be, and not too far from where your Thunderbird “neck” pickup is, and it still sounded like complete ass. It was an Artec version, not a true Gibson, because the Artec is $ and not $$$$$, and the Artec is a reasonably faithful copy.

I very quickly replaced it with a Novak EB-BS.

Which brings up a good point: exactly which “mudbucker” do you plan on using?

 

I think the reason why you don’t see anyone doing it is because it doesn’t make sense from a tone perspective to do that mod.

 

Your installing a mudbucker?...
On purpose?.......

 

Something I think the OP may be missing is that a mudbucker is a different size configuration than the stock T-bird pickups. This will require woodwork. If the stock pickups are not pleasing, I can HIGHLY recommend the Mike Lull t-bird pickups. Pricey, yes. But when you consider what woodwork will cost you and the risk that comes with it, I would consider the Lull pickups as a really good deal.

 

This plan sounds like heresy! What is wrong with the stock neck pickup?

Disclaimer: I love the tone of Thunderbird pickups. I just cannot deal with the ergonomics of the bass body.

 

Something that bears mentioning is most mudbucker style pickups are narrow scale pole piece spacing.

 

LoL - funny responses. I too hate mudbuckers. But, if you want that deep dead sort of tone, it must be closer to the neck, also, based on everything I've ever read about them when folks have moved them further from the neck.

They really seem to be best when setup in tandem with a brighter bridge or middle pickup. at least that is my opinion since I really really do not like that tone on it's own, a real mudbucker on a gibson in the real neck position - it's just not my thing. But it can be ok with the bridge pickup, for sure.

 

I've started working on a thunderbird build that will feature a jazz bridge pickup (and dummy coil) along with a mudbucker in the p position or wherever it fits, with a series/parallel switch. single volume and tone with a blend. mudbucker is supposed to play well with fuzz

 

One option that would be in the spirit of the mudbucker is using Nordstrand Zen Blades (or Q-Tuners). They’re sidewinders, like mudbucker, but more modern and refined. I think they’d also fit the Thunderbird cavities better. In fact, I believe some Thunderbird pickups were sidewinders, I think during Bill Lawrence’s time at Gibson.

If you want a deep tone, just use a really large value capacitor, like .1uF...

 

I'll go against the grain and really like the top end from a non-choked mudbucker (I know it sounds like an oxymoron, but think the bright position of an EB-2). But I won't sacrifice a perfectly good Thunderbird pickup for it.
Also the Artec is a pretty bad mudbucker. Very sloppy build quality, the magnets will fall out - which is actually a good thing, since you can flip them into the right direction, instead of what they were randomly slapped on.