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Music Man sound and pickups

#345
I hope you all dont mind me asking this question here... I have one of those OLP Musicman basses that I'm rewiring due to the previous owner doing a horrible job (Volume and tone didn't work right, it was just on and off basically. And there was no capacitor on the tone pot)

I've been following this:
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my only problem now is the pickup wiring... The OLP basses are basically 2 singlecoil pickups under one casing, so I have 2 sets of identical wires coming from the pickup. 2 leads and each one contains a white and bare wire.
help?
 
#346
the white wires are the positive and the bares are negative. you can hook each pair up to a MM and tap the coils with a screwdriver to figure out which pair to goes to what coil. I own several of those basses and the pots and wiring are really bad. the pots on mine were actually turning green. Even alpha pots would be a step up
 
#348
What MM pup would you guys recommend for a "Passive" bass that doesnt sound like mud? Never could get it to sound good in my carvin. I like them in active basses and just want one that will sound good in this passive bass.

Thanks!
 
#349
I recommend Nordstrand. Just had the 5.4 quadcoil with a Bartolini preamp installed in my Ernieball. It is now the best sounding bass I have ever played and I've been playing for over 20 years, including live recordings and studio work. This thing is a beast of a bass. And I was even able to keep the 3 way blade switch series/single coil/parallel.
 
#351
therhodeo said:
Is a quad coil going to be hot enough passive? MM pickups are generally put with a pre for a reason.
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A preamp does not necessarily boost the signal. MM pickups wired passive are more than hot enough. The Stingray preamp does not boost the signal much, when set flat. I have a bypass switch on mine which helps demonstrate this very nicely. So the quad coil above is going to be just fine passive.

I like the Seymour Duncan SMB4A pickup a lot (5A for 5 string). I used it passive too on an old OLP a while ago and it was a beast. In a good way ;-)
 
#354
bass4peace said:
What MM pup would you guys recommend for a "Passive" bass that doesnt sound like mud? Never could get it to sound good in my carvin. I like them in active basses and just want one that will sound good in this passive bass.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Go with a GFS Alnico model. $36 dollars worth $100+ easy. Listen to this clip of my bass I am building at the moment where I have it hard wired to the guitar cable (not going through any pots). I also now have it wired to my Bartoloini NTMB electronics and it sounds killer still. But I still like the hard wired sound just s touch more.

 
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#356
mcnach said:
I had a GFS alnico MM and was pretty underwhelmed by it...
It was not terrible, but it was... bland. The Seymour Duncan I bought to replace it kicked its butt in every way possible.
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I have heard sound clips of these and did like it. I do want to try these one day. I must say I am really digging this gfs but I must say the bartolini electronics does tame it just a little to much for me.
 
#357
REME7178 said:
I found a pair a new Basslines SMB-4A alnico pickups and the STC-3M4 tone circuit that goes with at a guitar store by where I live. I own a EBMM Sting Ray, and I am contemplating installing the Basslines pickup and tone circuit. I am happy with my Sting Ray it has never given me any problems and it sounds awsome with the stock alnico pickups, I know that the stock PU's that the Sting Ray came with from the factory are really great PU's it's one of the selling points and reasons why people aquire and play EBMM Sting Ray bass guitars. I am not sure it can get any better then the way it sounds now. What I want to know is with the Basslines pickups and the electronics will it infact sound even better then it does right now with the stock pickups and electronics? I do not want to waste my time and money to getting them installed if their is no benefit to replacing the current MM PU's, or if after I get them installed I am going to be like *** and just want to rip them out. I can't find any reviews comparing the two, and the people and bass players that I talk to are mixed on their opinions, or they are super vague, or they just tell me IDK/ IDK it's really up to you (WELL NS) I know that, but I want your opinion. Most of the bass players that like the Basslines pickups Play Fenders.

By bass players I asked, I mean 4 and by people, I mean 3, but 2 of them work at the music store and sold me the PU's.

If the Basslines pickups are not as great as the EBMM pickups it's NBD because the PU's I do not use will go into an OLP that my niece plays. In your opinion what would you do, keep my current pickups's or replace with the Basslines pickups?
Click to expand...

I just ended up putting the parts in to a SUB Ray 4. It's not the same as my Stingray as far as what I like, but it's close. Easily one of the nicest sounds that I have gotten out of a bass, and 20X better than when I pulled the Ray 4 out of the box. I play it and take it with me more than I do any of my other basses.
 

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#360
Good call on the Strat diagrams, thebassbuilder! This is darn near spot-on:

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Don't want to click? Here's the main bits:

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The main problem is that in position 4, I would want both outer coils engaged. Might anyone know how to go about amending this?

Cheers,
Mike
 

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