Just reversed the pickups---left to right and right to left, to see if it was indeed better. Just seemed muddier and not really any louder. These V Mod II's definately have a lower output. Very refined, but I normally play loud punk and metal--I need the beef.
It wouldn't make it any louder, but the expectation is that it would make the E & A strings a little more aggressive / hefty, and the D & G a little smoother.
Some people say A2 is less dynamic than A5. Some people say the reverse is true.
We're used to hearing an all A5 on a Fender Precision, although early 70's models used A3, and I've heard that some 50's models used A2 (I think the Seymour Duncan Antiquity is A2).
I don't really know, as this isn't a rabbit hole I particularly want to go down, but I've heard great A2 Precision pickups, great A3 pickups, and great A5 pickups.
Generally speaking, I love 50's Precisions, and 70's Precisions - I'm not at all fixated on 60's instruments, or chasing Jamerson's tone.
I get the impression that V-Mod II pickups are under-wound (I think they're around 9k, although I've seen people claim 11k), which would explain the low output - although I don't find it to be much lower than my StingRay.
If it is under-wound, perhaps the idea was to put the D & G side (A5) in the brighter 1950's ball park (bright and clear = modern, when people are associating dark with vintage - even though 50's is older than 60's), and then in order to get the volume matched, with the tone darker and smoother (ie somewhat more "
vintage" than a bright and clear A5) the solution was to use A2 on the E & A side???
I don't know, I'm just speculating, but as someone who likes 50's & 70's pickups, that might explain why I find the V-Mod II interesting, if not ideal (I still haven't decided,
if I do end up swapping the pickups, whether to go for a 50's voicing, or play it safe with a 60's voicing).
If you're mostly playing punk & metal, that combo suggests to me late 70's to early 80's - so they would have been using either beat-up 60's Precisions (they weren't collectors items, just cheap used instruments), or fairly new 70's Precisions.
I haven't a clue if the likes of JJ Burnel, Paul Simonon, or Dee Dee Ramone just used their Precisions stock, but I remember during that period that a lot of Metal bassists were finding stock Fender pickups too weak, and swapping them for something more powerful (to compete with the emerging active basses).
Those Seymour Duncan, Bartolini, and EMG pickups are still popular to this day, but I find the whole thing a bit of a minefield - if you're chasing this So called "classic" P-bass tone (because it "sits perfectly in the mix" yadda, yadda) , yet trying to make it sound
more powerful,
more bass heavy,
more snarl, louder etc you're deviating from all the things that made it work so well in the first place.
