New bass advice

[Fondsdale]

So: I'm thinking aboot going EMG with the Sterling and making it an Evil-only bass, while the Yamaha - or another passive option - might cover the radio friendly area of my work. It seems harder to go the opposite rout: make the Sterling more presentable and buy a monster.

Have you played EMGs before? I know in guitar circles they are thought of as "metal only pickups" but for bass they really aren't what I'd consider exclusively "metal" pickups. Every EMG pup I've played is super hifi with very clean sound. I wouldn't say they're polite, but they aren't more aggressive than a passive Stingray style pup. For example their J pickups do that scooped Marcus Miller sound straight outta the box. The EMG soapbars used in Spector 5s are very "metal", but I find that's due to the pickup placement more than the pups themselves. I haven't played the MusicMan EMG but I couldn't imagine it being more "metal", only different.
Btw, plenty of pop and radio friendly music was done using a Stingray. You don't need to tone it down to be more "presentable". If I was playing in a top 40 cover band and could only use one bass, a Stingray 5 would be my choice.

Have you considered Spector? Is a Euro 5 in your budget?

 

[gordonfreemanjr]

Have you played EMGs before? I know in guitar circles they are thought of as "metal only pickups" but for bass they really aren't what I'd consider exclusively "metal" pickups. Every EMG pup I've played is super hifi with very clean sound. I wouldn't say they're polite, but they aren't more aggressive than a passive Stingray style pup. For example their J pickups do that scooped Marcus Miller sound straight outta the box. The EMG soapbars used in Spector 5s are very "metal", but I find that's due to the pickup placement more than the pups themselves. I haven't played the MusicMan EMG but I couldn't imagine it being more "metal", only different.
Btw, plenty of pop and radio friendly music was done using a Stingray. You don't need to tone it down to be more "presentable". If I was playing in a top 40 cover band and could only use one bass, a Stingray 5 would be my choice.

Have you considered Spector? Is a Euro 5 in your budget?

Have you played EMGs before? I know in guitar circles they are thought of as "metal only pickups" but for bass they really aren't what I'd consider exclusively "metal" pickups. Every EMG pup I've played is super hifi with very clean sound. I wouldn't say they're polite, but they aren't more aggressive than a passive Stingray style pup. For example their J pickups do that scooped Marcus Miller sound straight outta the box. The EMG soapbars used in Spector 5s are very "metal", but I find that's due to the pickup placement more than the pups themselves. I haven't played the MusicMan EMG but I couldn't imagine it being more "metal", only different.
Btw, plenty of pop and radio friendly music was done using a Stingray. You don't need to tone it down to be more "presentable". If I was playing in a top 40 cover band and could only use one bass, a Stingray 5 would be my choice.

Have you considered Spector? Is a Euro 5 in your budget?

Thanks for the detailed weigh in. Spector 5's are around 2.5k$ here. It's too much. It's even more expensive than Yamaha BBP35, which I find amazing after being pointed to within this topic.

I'm more in the 1k$ region here.

 

[gordonfreemanjr]

Have you played EMGs before? I know in guitar circles they are thought of as "metal only pickups" but for bass they really aren't what I'd consider exclusively "metal" pickups. Every EMG pup I've played is super hifi with very clean sound. I wouldn't say they're polite, but they aren't more aggressive than a passive Stingray style pup. For example their J pickups do that scooped Marcus Miller sound straight outta the box. The EMG soapbars used in Spector 5s are very "metal", but I find that's due to the pickup placement more than the pups themselves. I haven't played the MusicMan EMG but I couldn't imagine it being more "metal", only different.
Btw, plenty of pop and radio friendly music was done using a Stingray. You don't need to tone it down to be more "presentable". If I was playing in a top 40 cover band and could only use one bass, a Stingray 5 would be my choice.

Have you considered Spector? Is a Euro 5 in your budget?

True, I'm kind of used to thinking of EMG's as metal-only. To be honest though, the Geezer Butler signatures - according to demos - didn't do much to make me feel wrong about this generalization.

Let me ask you this: if you were me, already owned a Sterling 5 and intended to have two similar end basses, one more radio friendly oriented and the other one more evil oriented, what would you do within 1k$ budget (bass purchase only, does not include possible pickup replacement)?