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Music Man sound and pickups
- Thread starter TonyP-
- Start date
I just bought an '05 with an authentic 1980 preamp and Nordy Pup. The seller, Bassman28 mentioned in his ad that they go for 2-300 when they pop up on ebay. I've only had it a couple days and it sounds very good.
Someone have any idea to where i can find original Music Man Preamp, "Black Epoxy" from 1976 or 1977 by example, for perfect fit with my 1977 Stingray, please ?
One point... It may not be purist for historical accuracy, but the epoxied 2 bands were supposedly identical to the non epoxied 2 bands that came later which were far far easier to repair. Epoxying circuits was done to prevent duplication, not for the benefit of the owner, and made repairs nearly impossible.
One other benefit of later versions is the addition of a diode to prevent destroying your preamp if you accidentally touch the battery on it's connector the wrong way around while swapping batteries in a dark backstage area.
Also... Capacitors go bad with age... Sometimes replacing parts with new is a GOOD idea and can return that vintage circuit to preform how it did originally instead of the likelihood that it has actually changed it's eq points gradually with age of the caps.
Same goes for passive tone controls... The caps can gradually go bad.... Which may not be good for your amp etc
One other benefit of later versions is the addition of a diode to prevent destroying your preamp if you accidentally touch the battery on it's connector the wrong way around while swapping batteries in a dark backstage area.
Also... Capacitors go bad with age... Sometimes replacing parts with new is a GOOD idea and can return that vintage circuit to preform how it did originally instead of the likelihood that it has actually changed it's eq points gradually with age of the caps.
Same goes for passive tone controls... The caps can gradually go bad.... Which may not be good for your amp etc
I have the body and neck from a Vintage EST96 which I'm putting back together with new parts. I've seen plenty of preamps with three controls and a jack lined up on the control plate. But the EST96 originally had four controls, and the jack was on the bottom edge of the body which means I have an extra space to fill. Can anyone recommend either a preamp/pots set with four controls, or some kind of modification that I could make to one with three controls?
If you are talking about pre loaded control plate. Some are passive, so you need to make sure that is what you want. If not they sell the control plate with out controls and then you can add any 3 band pre you want and will be able to use the body jack location.
If you are using a 2 band pre and this is a single pickup bass then you could add a passive tone control in the blank hole on the control plate and use the body jack location.
Other than this you could buy a wooden dowl and fill the hole where the body jack was.
It doesn't have to be pre-loaded onto a plate. I've just seen preamps with pots and jacks already soldered onto them. The body is routed for a single pickup and I was aiming for active. I did consider dowl, but it's quite a wide hole and I've never seen it being sold with that kind of diameter before. Thanks for the reply though. I'll see what I can find.
Hey,
Relating to pickup placing, I was wondering if anyone had managed to recreate a Musicman (single humbucker) sound using a Warmoth body, as they seem to only offer pickup placement in the neck or bridge positions.
Thanks.
Relating to pickup placing, I was wondering if anyone had managed to recreate a Musicman (single humbucker) sound using a Warmoth body, as they seem to only offer pickup placement in the neck or bridge positions.
Thanks.
I think if you order it with the mm pick in bridge location it is correctly located. Because when you build a body it tells you, you cannot have a p bass pickup with a mm pickup because they overlap. If that is the case I think that will put the mm pickup in the correct location but of course you could ask them about this as well.
Is it reasonable to expect that a soapbar humbucker wired in parallel in the MM sweet spot would get a Stingrayish tone?
I'm going to be putting an SGD Neo humbucker in the sweet spot on my bass and it will have a series/single/parallel switch and be connected to an Audere 4-band preamp.
I'm going to be putting an SGD Neo humbucker in the sweet spot on my bass and it will have a series/single/parallel switch and be connected to an Audere 4-band preamp.
Not necessarily, because the magnets are different, the coils are different, and the "aperture," or distance between pole pieces laterally are different. All these items affect the impedance, the inductance, the resonant frequency, and the comb filtering that gives any particular pickup its signature tonality. Will you get generally the same balance of fundamental to particular overtones? Probably, but again not necessarily.
I've just ordered a new left handed Stingray 5, Musicman only allow the option of one humbucker for the left handed model, has anyone installed a second humbucker into a stingray? if so how easy did you find creating the space and installing the 5 way selctor switch?
Just curious to know if anyone has tried or heard one of these
Delano MC 4 JAY-RAY Pickups before?
Can't seem to find any reviews, videos or much about them. I am definitely interested to know how one of these might sound for a future short scale Warmoth build.
Delano MC 4 JAY-RAY Pickups before?
Can't seem to find any reviews, videos or much about them. I am definitely interested to know how one of these might sound for a future short scale Warmoth build.
I think it would be a great pickup. The purpose, of course, of the dual poles, is to soften the articulation slightly so transients don't kill the amp or speakers. Well, with small tube rectifiers and paper cone speakers that could only handle ten to twenty watts each (why do you think Leo used four of them!), this was the original reason the single poles in the original 51-56 P-basses were changed to the dual poles in 57-onwards and Jazz pickups.
Just curious to know if anyone has tried or heard one of these
Delano MC 4 JAY-RAY Pickups before?
Can't seem to find any reviews, videos or much about them. I am definitely interested to know how one of these might sound for a future short scale Warmoth build.
Look on YouTube for clover bass or Delano and you will find some videos.
I spent some time yesterday playing my 2010 SR5HH trying to figure out all the preamp and pickup settings. Heres what I got so far using the computer frequency analyzer, hitting an open E as a basis:
Bridge humbucker solo, position 1, has a big boost around 500Hz
Neck humbucker solo, position 5, has a big boost around 500Hz
Both together, position 3, has a big drop around 500Hz, and possibly some treble cut too. Like a huge scoop. Turning up the treble and mid knobs kind of brings that 500Hz range back.
Looking at the SR5HH Alnico 2008 diagram, it shows that the middle, position 3, is actually NOT coils 1&2 and 3&4. Its actually coils 1&3 and 2&4. That would explain why the middle doesn't sound like both humbuckers on full to me. I would like to know if its possible to simply make position 3 be coils 1&2 and 3&4.
I also found on the 5 way selector, there are 2 additional in between settings.
Between position 1&2, it does the bridge pickup plus coil 4 of the neck pickup.
Between position 4&5, it does the neck pickup plus coil 2 of the bridge pickup.
Bridge humbucker solo, position 1, has a big boost around 500Hz
Neck humbucker solo, position 5, has a big boost around 500Hz
Both together, position 3, has a big drop around 500Hz, and possibly some treble cut too. Like a huge scoop. Turning up the treble and mid knobs kind of brings that 500Hz range back.
Looking at the SR5HH Alnico 2008 diagram, it shows that the middle, position 3, is actually NOT coils 1&2 and 3&4. Its actually coils 1&3 and 2&4. That would explain why the middle doesn't sound like both humbuckers on full to me. I would like to know if its possible to simply make position 3 be coils 1&2 and 3&4.
I also found on the 5 way selector, there are 2 additional in between settings.
Between position 1&2, it does the bridge pickup plus coil 4 of the neck pickup.
Between position 4&5, it does the neck pickup plus coil 2 of the bridge pickup.
Can you explain this a bit more? I'd be quite curious to hear the bridge pickup (both coils, i.e. position 1), with one of the neck coils.
Omg 1960 all over again... people discovering how the 3 way switches on strats had in between settings that sounded cool. So they invented the 5 way switch to make it official.
Now it's happening with sterlings and sr5s? LoL
How does it sound?
