NBD: Mod. edition

[MarkM13]

I picked up this ESP B-205sm fretless last month. love the feel of the neck and carved body. The OE pickups were a bit lacking in the low end but plenty usable. However, after a lot of research I decided to "Hot Rod' it with new Nordstrands; Big Single at the neck and a Big Blade at the bridge. The combination of these two is crazy. The tonal variation you can achieve is huge. Let's put it this way. when I first got this bass I had played it in both bands I gig with and no one really noticed. In rehearsals this week someone from each band commented on the tone and wondered when I had gotten a new fretless.

Mark

 

[eastcoasteddie]

Nice! I always liked those LTD's.

I just watched a bunch of Nordstrand's YouTube vids and it made me add a couple bells and whistles to my Dean...

 

[Carey]

View attachment 902577 View attachment 902578 View attachment 902579 I picked up this ESP B-205sm fretless last month. love the feel of the neck and carved body. The OE pickups were a bit lacking in the low end but plenty usable. However, after a lot of research I decided to "Hot Rod' it with new Nordstrands; Big Single at the neck and a Big Blade at the bridge. The combination of these two is crazy. The tonal variation you can achieve is huge. Let's put it this way. when I first got this bass I had played it in both bands I gig with and no one really noticed. In rehearsals this week someone from each band commented on the tone and wondered when I had gotten a new fretless.

Mark

Wow! What a unique installation. Love it!

 

[eastcoasteddie]

Wow! What a unique installation. Love it!

Hey Carey,

I watched your video with Dan Lutz and his custom with P and Bigman pickups. I'm intrigued as to whose idea was it to wire the Bigman that way, with choice of north or south coils, and hum-bucking; it is definitely uncommon. When in humbucking mode, are the coils wired in series or parallel?

Reason I ask is that I was once wiring up one of my aftermarket MM pickups for Series/Parallel/Single, and made a soldering error....the error was serendipitous because I inadvertently wired it Series/North Coil/South Coil.
I now wire all my dual-coil MM-type pickups that way.

 

[Carey]

Hey Carey,

I watched your video with Bill Lutz and his custom with P and Bigman pickups. I'm intrigued as to whose idea was it to wire the Bigman that way, with choice of north or south coils, and hum-bucking; it is definitely uncommon. When in humbucking mode, are the coils wired in series or parallel?

Reason I ask is that I was once wiring up one of my aftermarket MM pickups for Series/Parallel/Single, and made a soldering error....the error was serendipitous because I inadvertently wired it Series/North Coil/South Coil.
I now wire all my dual-coil MM-type pickups that way.

It was my idea to try that wiring with the BigMan. It just seemed to make sense. I love it!

It's surprising how much tonal variation there is between the two coils of an MM pickup. Both sounds are very useable.

 

[eastcoasteddie]

It was my idea to try that wiring with the BigMan. It just seemed to make sense. I love it!

It's surprising how much tonal variation there is between the two coils of an MM pickup. Both sounds are very useable.

I agree, I have an el-cheapo Dean that originally had 1 MM pickup wired in series. I added a 2nd pickup and wired them both in that fashion. It's amazing how different each of the 22 different wiring combinations are...
I also use a .1mF cap on the grounded coil when in single mode. (Ala G&L's k-mode wiring)

I just added an A/P switch and passive tone control to it last night. (After watching the Dan Lutz vid...)