Music Man Stingray Replacement Pickup

[Musicmanbassguy]

I just bought a Sterling by Music Man SUB Ray4 bass. It sounds incredible for the price, but it hums quite a bit, and I would just like a better sounding pickup. I was leaning towards Aguilar or EMG, but are there any other good Music Man pickups I could use that would sound good and be as noiseless as possible?

 

[Laurent]

There are some extensive postings on this topic; I tested most of them and ended up keeping the Semour Duncan Smb-4a.

 

[Dave W]

Yup. Check the sticky on the top of the page.

I have the ceramic version of the SD pickup in one of my Rays. Most people will tell you the Nordstrand is the greatest thing ever, but I've tried every one of their pickups for MM and they're just too polite sounding for my taste.

 

[line6man]

are there any other good Music Man pickups I could use that would sound good and be as noiseless as possible?

ALL MM pickups should be humcanceling. If you are having issues with hum, it isn't the pickup, and changing pickups probably wont help. Figure out what is causing the problem first, then think about new pickups.

 

[uOpt]

The MM pickups usually have unshielded (just twisted) wires to the cavity. You can shield that, along with the cavity.

My favorite MM type humbucker is the SD SMB4a (alnico version). It comes with a shielded 4-conductor wire that allows for split, parallel, in-series etc.

 

[dincz]

I haven't done comparisons, but on the basis of reports from various TB users, I recently bought the SD SMB-4A and am very happy with it.