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Music Man sound and pickups
- Thread starter TonyP-
- Start date
Am I understanding correctly that you intend to remove your J pickup and replace it with an MM pickup? If so, your suggested toggle switch settings don't make sense to me.
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Looks like the MM pickup is not at Stingray spot. Also, your Delano might not be connected in parallel. Stingray (2-band) preamp has influence on tone, too.
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Not exactly like mine as the MM style pickup on mine had a split coil switch. Even if the pickup was in the exact Stingray position I don’t think it would have sounded like one. As you say, it needed an MM preamp in conjunction with to get anywhere near, but there again I didn’t buy the Sandy for that reason.
Very impressive. Congratulations.
Thanks! It is a fun project. Few tweaks to finish it up, but really happy with how it came out overall.
Did you get the JE installed? Wondering if you liked the Nordy any better with the new pre. I have the SD PU and Pre in my Ray4 and it's really nice. But I also have the Nordy pickup just sitting there in the box and it's wooing me to give it a try. I mean why not right? A little solder and away I go.
Hi Phindog,
I’m not sure now that I’ve done a couple of gigs with it, I love the John East preamp but the bass doesn’t quite have that bite that the original pickup and preamp had? Whilst the Nordy/East combo is a very nice sound I’m wondering whether the stock set up was actually more Stingray-esque than what I have now? Perhaps it’s because the stock pickup is ceramic?
I’m tempted to drop the stock pickup back in temporarily just to hear how it sounds with the East 3 band? It would be quite easy to do with the East as it’s solderless.
I’m not sure now that I’ve done a couple of gigs with it, I love the John East preamp but the bass doesn’t quite have that bite that the original pickup and preamp had? Whilst the Nordy/East combo is a very nice sound I’m wondering whether the stock set up was actually more Stingray-esque than what I have now? Perhaps it’s because the stock pickup is ceramic?
I’m tempted to drop the stock pickup back in temporarily just to hear how it sounds with the East 3 band? It would be quite easy to do with the East as it’s solderless.
Thanks.
I've been pretty happy with the SD pre and p/u. But with the Nordy sitting in the box, I threw it into the bass this last weekend to see the difference. I would agree that it leaned into Pbass territory unless I cut the mids and rolled up the treble, then it was more ray-ish. It definitely has that low mid thing going as others have said. But it wasn't to my taste, so I put the SD back in. I'll rock this setup for a bit, but I am also curious about the ceramic SD.
From what I've read, both the Nordstrand MM range pickups and the John East MMSR preamp have been designed to get close to the sound of a pre EBMM Stingray. I don't know exactly what this is, I only have past experience with an EBMM SR5 which had a ceramic pickup.
I have rolled back the mids like you have and you are correct it is more ray-ish then, but if you do cut the mids then in my experience you are creating a 'smiley face' eq which doesn't then seem to let the bass cut through the mix, you need some mids to help do this IMHO.
You have a lot more scope and options with the Ray 4, on the Ray 5 you are limited to what pickups you can fit because of the narrow string spacing, otherwise the pole pieces won't line up (might not be important to some people). Apart from the Nordstrand MM5.2 (while is the exact required size) the only other pickup to fit is possibly the EMG as I think their MM style pickup doesn't have any visible pole pieces? I'm hoping Lobster will be bringing some upgrade video's out for the Ray 5 model.
I would say that in Single Coil Mode it does have sort of a P Bass tone (and it is usable), with the other 2 modes I prefer Parallel mode for personal headphone usage (and some live work depending on the song), but generally I like the beefier sound of Series mode.
Do Seymour Duncan do a Ceramic MM pickup that would fit your Ray 4? As you say it would be interesting to hear what that would be like.
I'm going to still pursue the Nordy/John East combo for the moment, in particular the mid-range settings which have a couple of dip switch settings on the circuit board. At the moment it is set at the default low mids.
I also swapped the strings shortly after the install, which has muddied the waters a bit. I fitted some Ernie Ball Slinky's but am not too happy with them which is a surprise as I thought that's what the SUB Ray 4's and 5's came fitted with. I might just swap back to the old strings until I've bottomed out getting the tone right.
I did a complete set up on the Ray 5 last night following my recent installation of the Nordstrand pickup, East preamp and string change, the neck needed a slight amount of relief plus the strings were too high and the pickup was too low, I initially set the pickup low as per the (too powerful) stock pickup but the Nordy has actually had to come up quite a bit. It really needs a bit more foam under the pickup now as it has reached the end of it's play.
The bass now plays extremely well again and it sounds superb through my Boss GT-1B and headphones, I hope I can now replicate this sound through my amp! I'm getting used to the Slinky's now and I think they were the right choice (for now!)
The bass now plays extremely well again and it sounds superb through my Boss GT-1B and headphones, I hope I can now replicate this sound through my amp! I'm getting used to the Slinky's now and I think they were the right choice (for now!)
Hey all, I have a Ray25CA that I picked up dirt cheap last year and turned into a mod platform. I upgraded the tuners to Hipshot ultralites and went with the Aguilar AG5M pickup and John East MMSR 2 band pre, thinking that would get me close the the pre-EB tone. I think what I have in my head for that tone may be a little skewed, as I had a Cutlass 1 which I just got rid of and I think the graphite neck gave it a lot more zing than the current setup in the Ray25CA. I think the tone I have in my head is closer to the 90's SR5 with the ceramic pickup (I had one of these too, and let it go years ago. D'oh!!). I'm thinking of swapping out the Aguilar to a Seymour Duncan SMB5D and installing a series/parallel switch. Has anyone here used the combo of the SD ceramic 90's SR5 pup and the John East, and if so, how did you wire it?
I currently have the SD Alnico and SD pre. It is very similar to the ray sound. I think the ceramic would be a little more aggressive and clear. Could be a good pair with the East pre, although I have no experience with the East pre. I’d love to hear how it works out.
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SR5 no, but the Delano MC 4 FE and the East MMSR 3-band is a compelling combination in my fretless EBMM SR4. I also dropped a ceramic pickup (from an EBMM Sterling) into my SBMM Ray34 with the stock 3-band preamp and it was also transformative. Both are wired parallel.
It depends on who makes the pickup. I get all my MM Alnico pickups custom wound at Sentell and they sound amazing. Way better than the ceramics they replaced.
That is wholly subjective. If the sound of your custom-wound pickups meets your sonic goals then they are better for you than those that do not. For me, the ceramics meet my sonic goals and alnico does not, therefore ceramic is better for me.
It's NPD. I'll swap out the pickup tonight along with a nice antique pearl pickguard. The pickguard is at least 3% of the improvement in tone I expect to get 
