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New Pickups or New Bass?

#21
Technotitclan said:
I think he's not selling it because it belongs to his brother. They have some kind of weird arrangement about the bass and a guitar he has. Hes cool with modding it though..... strange.
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It's going to cost more to mod it than to just buy a good used bass. Okay, let's work with the strangeness here... preamp and add a bridge pickup (one that has a brighter tone like a jazz)
 
#23
Technotitclan said:
So my guitarist has a cheap Dean 4 string that he doesn't like the tone of. His issue is essentially that it doesn't sound bright enough. Its very dark and just a little muddy. We have changed the pickup a couple of times to something brighter than stock but its still not cutting it. As it is I am seeing two issues with this bass
1: The only pickup it has is closer to the neck than any of the basses he likes, which I will list below.
2: acoustically the bass is very dark sounding. Normally I'm the type that claims that wood makes only a little bit of a difference, but this thing..... I have played a good number of basses all of a extremely wide variety of woods but this thing is nothing like any of them. It sucks the highs completely out of the strings. He currently has ProSteels on it and they sound like broken in nickles!

My question for the collective greatness that is TB... Is there a hyper bright pickup he can get that may negate this basses issues or does he need to suck it up and get a new bass? I kinda feel I already know the answer. Just hoping someone can offer up a pickup option as hes super stingy and probably won't buy another bass and I don't want to go into the details of the terrible things he does to record with a sound he wants.

Basses he likes in order: Squier P Bass Special (Squier MB-4) Ibanez SR500, Musicman single H with two band eq.
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I haven't read the other posts so I apologize for any redundancy, but has he tried out different string gauges/brands/types? I set of stainless rounds in a lighter gauge may do the trick.
 
#24
Technotitclan said:
Yeah. I'm not going to advise him to rout and another pickup but... there is lots of room for a MM pup....
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I like that idea of a MM pickup. I had a Dean Edge with that single pickup before. It's the placement of the pickup that lends to it's dark, murky sound which I hated and couldn't coax any good sound out of it- ended up just giving the bass away. Adding a bridge pickup to the bass and preamp will certainly help. Actually might sound pretty interesting with the two pickups combined. I'd still recommend just picking up a different bass altogether though.
 
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#25
The tone pots are rolled to 10 correct? I had an issue with my guild starfire where it sounded incredibly dark and it was do to a certain switch in the circuit. Once I removed that from the circuit the bass sounded completely different. Probably not the case here but maybe the caps are somehow always on full (tone rolled all the way back,zero), which was what happened with me.
 
#26
Technotitclan said:
Passive. I think your right about a pre. As far as the amp eq... I can get an ok sound, but my guitarist....... He doesn't pug into an actual amp when at home, he uses Amplitube. And he uses the most convoluted use of amps, cabs and graphic eq's to change sounds, then uses additional VST's in Ableton to further modify the sound. He does this on guitar too. I think his normal signal chain in Amplitube is eq pedal>bass amp with 9 band graphic(He uses all 9 bands, btw)>2 cabs of different types>15 band eq>Ableton>compressor>another eq.

The point i'm getting to is i think its best to get the sound he needs direct from the bass without amp intervention. I can get somewhat close to the sound he wants but he finds it impossible to get on his own.
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Sounds to me like he has way more gear than he knows how to use properly, that amount of separate EQ's is totally ridiculous.

Ah, I missed the part about him being your guitarist friend. That explains it ;)

In all seriousness though, if the bass sounds dark acoustically with a brand new set of stainless strings on it, sell it and get something else; what he's essentially doing (aside from being an obvious spend thrift) is trying to 'fix it in the mix', which is never ideal and rarely works well.
 
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#27
MDBass said:
Sounds to me like he has way more gear than he knows how to use properly, that amount of separate EQ's is totally ridiculous.

Ah, I missed the part about him being your guitarist friend. That explains it ;)

In all seriousness though, if the bass sounds dark acoustically with a brand new set of stainless strings on it, sell it and get something else; what he's essentially doing (aside from being an obvious spend thrift) is trying to 'fix it in the mix', which is never ideal and rarely works well.
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Agreed on all counts. Just thought I would give him some options since I know hes not going to go with the right one. I mentioned to him all the things said here and even explained how much of a difference each one will make. The result...drum roll..... he going to change pots. yup. W/e he is a guitarist after all. and this is only for experimental stuff he likes to tool around with in his bedroom. With our band he leaves every ounce of bass playing and writing up to me. Which can be a blessing and a curse.
 
#29
wisconsindead said:
The tone pots are rolled to 10 correct? I had an issue with my guild starfire where it sounded incredibly dark and it was do to a certain switch in the circuit. Once I removed that from the circuit the bass sounded completely different. Probably not the case here but maybe the caps are somehow always on full (tone rolled all the way back,zero), which was what happened with me.
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I suspect the tone pot may be part of the issue. When I first hooked a new pickup I wired the pup direct out for testing before i found a short that i fix. Durring that time I swear I remember it being brighter than it is now. Next time I have it I will try running direct pickup>jack again.
 
#36
soflbass said:
Idea 1: return cheap bass to owner.
Idea 2: let a bass player who owns his own bass play the bass lines. :woot:
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LOL. He only uses the bass in his private solo material. In our band he does no where near the bass lines. He actually goes out of his way to give me as moch room as he can. Its almost problematic, sometimes input is needed you know?
 
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#37
Thanks for all the comments and ideas guys. So far he said he is happy with the pickup I just put in it ($4 Squier single coil J, lol) and I think he has been convinced finally that if he wants something better than that he will just suck it up and get a new bass.
 
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#39
Buy a cheap Jackson... Never played a better entry Level bass. It definetely beats Dean and squier, just hold one and you can feel the difference. Going from Dean to a neck heavy unbalanced bass like Squier is a mistake for a guitar player who plays bass part time.
 

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