Musicmaster Replacement Pickup Comparison - Lace Red vs Novak

[dfp]

Nice comparison sound clips! Sound similar enough I could believe they’re the same but with tone rolled off in the Lace examples and tone full up in the Novak examples. Based on that, I favor the Novak, one can always roll tone off, but if it’s not there to begin with is too limiting.

Did you ever make a comparison to a regular strat pickup? I’m experimenting with a vintage style Alnico V strat pickup supposedly wound to 6.3 in a Bronco bass, it sounds pretty great so far at home, plenty of punch and sweeter treble than the stock ceramic magnet pickup of the Bronco. I favor clean, vintage Fender tones, not overwound or boomy or necessarily high output. I have a 800 watt bass amp to handle the output thing.

 

[whitelines]

I did not have a strat pickup lying around to try at the time. Would have been a good comparison.

 

[Jv-d]

I think both pickups sound great. Also, your playing is on point. Nice groove.

I think the answer is in your fingers, not the p-ups... both P-ups are gig-worthy...
Its the results of all your woodshedding and gigging experience that people will notice at a gig, with your band around you!
With all due respect...

 

[vates]

I had a Fender Lace Red in my early 70s music master. I replaced it with a Curtis Novak Musicmaster Bass Hum-cancelling pickup, which is humbucker similar to a Mustang. I recorded both combos with three different right hand attack modalities. If I can find a strat pickup, I'll throw it in the mix later too. I lost the one that was originally installed. I remember it not having much beef, but memory is a funny thing...

Bass is strung with LaBella flats. I recorded through a Noble preamp into a Scarlet interface into Logic Pro X. I turned on a slight bit of compression using the Logic compressor plugin with the "Bass Light" default setting. (As recommended to my by @IanAllison ). Drums are a Clyde Stubblefield loop. I post processed it with Ozone to bump up the volume (which will compress it more...).

The Lace Red is panned slightly to the left, the Novak slightly to the right.
The differences are most pronounced on the "fingers" and "pick" tracks. The "foam mute" track is more subtle.





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Masterful performance and great recording, thanks for sharing!

I prefer the sound of Lace just a tiny bit: more focused, less hairy.
But I'd probably want to buy a Novak: just because it's hum-cancelling.

Btw, can't find this particular model on Curtis' site.

 

[whitelines]

Masterful performance and great recording, thanks for sharing!

I prefer the sound of Lace just a tiny bit: more focused, less hairy.
But I'd probably want to buy a Novak: just because it's hum-cancelling.

Btw, can't find this particular model on Curtis' site.

Might need to call or email him. I run he does a bunch of short runs that don’t get advertised.

 

[vates]

Thanks!

 

[dfp]

I very recently inquired with Novak and the hum canceling Musicmaster pickup was not available. I didn’t ask if it would be in the future, I just ordered the regular single coil one (MM Bass V). The semi generic single coil strat style pickups I’ve been using haven’t given me any noise problems at the venues I’ve used them so far, so I figured I’d take a chance on another single coil. Looking fwd to trying the Novak.

 

[don21480]

Reviving an old thread - any specifics the OP can provide regarding pot values and tone cap. Sounds great and a little more lively than my experience - I’m using 250k pots and .104 orange drop playing DR Hi Beams

 

[whitelines]

Reviving an old thread - any specifics the OP can provide regarding pot values and tone cap. Sounds great and a little more lively than my experience - I’m using 250k pots and .104 orange drop playing DR Hi Beams

I don’t recall offhand what the pot and cap values were, so assume stock. I’ve got some time off in a week, maybe I’ll peek under the hood find out for sure