Nordstrand Dual Coil with coil switching - samples! :)

[Fliptrique]

Hi,

due to having an awesome bass with these pickups, I`ve decided to record all the different coil configurations:

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Fingers: Link Removed

The setup was as follows - two nord DC`s with single/series/pararell switching.

Bass is tuned HEAD, strings are some old warwick red label nickles (light gauge) I`ve found in my gigbag and cleaned before recording this.

Bass is set up extremely LOW - under 1mm on the G string and a little above 1mm on the H with minimal relif. There is fretbuzz - I play with some form of distortion 99% of the time and quite like the Distortion/fretbuzz sound

Samples are as follows :

1. ss
2. hh 1
3. hh2
4. s neck
5. h1 neck
6. h2 neck
7. s bridge
8. h1 bridge
9. h2 bridge
10. h1 s
11. h2 s
12. s h1
13. s h2
14. h1 h2
15. h2 h1

ss means both pickups in single coil, h1 is the brighter humbucker setting, h2 is the darker, louder one. All samples are recorded with the same gain setting exept the bridge solo h2 ones - I`ve had to reduce the gain by 3dB to avoid clipping. Onboard preamp was bypassed, but I do think it`s quite usefull, especially with the darker humbucker settings - adding a bit of treble boost helps a lot.

Mandatory bass pic, a Mayones Comodous lying around my good friend`s studio:

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[DWBass]

Those sound a lot better than those horrid Big Splits I owned. Very nice. I wish Nordy would make covers to cover the exposed poles. What preamp is in that bass?

 

[Fliptrique]

Thanks!

The pre is a 18V Mayones preamp - active treble/bass/mids (low/high mids on a push/pull pot) with an additional passive tone.

I run it mostly passive - the bass sounds good by itself.

 

[smperry]

I wish Nordy would make covers to cover the exposed poles.

They will, if you order them that way.

 

[maurilio]

+1 even for those 'horrid' BSp



M

 

[the baint]

Curious, what tuning is HEAD? At first I thought it was a typo for BEAD, but you repeated H in the description. Googling “bass tuning HEAD” simply gives machine tuners as results :/

 

[Chasarms]

Curious, what tuning is HEAD? At first I thought it was a typo for BEAD, but you repeated H in the description. Googling “bass tuning HEAD” simply gives machine tuners as results :/

For reasons unknown to me, parts of Europe refer to the note "B" as "H." It's mostly a German thing.

http://www.tonalsoft.com/enc/g/german-h.aspx

 

[mb94952]

I did the same to my bass, but I used a Bartolini NTMB 4.6 preamp. I had my tech do it because it's quite a lot of work to install for an amateur like me.

Oh, it sounds killer, by the way...

 

[Fliptrique]

For reasons unknown to me, parts of Europe refer to the note "B" as "H." It's mostly a German thing.

http://www.tonalsoft.com/enc/g/german-h.aspx

Hi,

yeah - it`s an european thing. Our H is your B, and to make things even more fun - your B is our A#

So saying to a musician from poland/germany "play that in B major" will most probably result in some beautifull free jazz harmony

 

[Fliptrique]

I did the same to my bass, but I used a Bartolini NTMB 4.6 preamp. I had my tech do it because it's quite a lot of work to install for an amateur like me.

Oh, it sounds killer, by the way...

Nice one!

I`ve installed the DC`s in my five string, but wired it a bit different:

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- inner coil
- outer coil
- humbucer

there are a lot of cool sounds in there. Especially the inner/outer combinations are interesting.

and BTW the links are outdated, they`re currently here:

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[Munjibunga]

Those sound a lot better than those horrid Big Splits I owned. Very nice. I wish Nordy would make covers to cover the exposed poles. What preamp is in that bass?

They do. I have them on my 55-94.

 

[mb94952]

Curious, what tuning is HEAD? At first I thought it was a typo for BEAD, but you repeated H in the description. Googling “bass tuning HEAD” simply gives machine tuners as results :/

My thoughts exactly !!

 

[mb94952]

Nice one!

I`ve installed the DC`s in my five string, but wired it a bit different:

Invalid Link Removed

- inner coil
- outer coil
- humbucer

there are a lot of cool sounds in there. Especially the inner/outer combinations are interesting.

and BTW the links are outdated, they`re currently here:

Link Removed
Link Removed

Those basses are gorgeous and I love the black toggles !!!

Wow !!! Pretty cool !! I'm truly AMAZED with the near endless configurations that DC's can be wired. I would've NEVER thought of Outer Coil / Inner Coil.

It in essence is like instantly changing the positions of single coils with the flip of a switch.

In my opinion, I don't see why one wouldn't purchase the DC's if you're set on Nordstrand. It seems like the DC's can do what the other models can do, but the other models can't do what the DC's do.

 

[Fliptrique]

The inner/outer coils do sound different - the neck one more than the bridge, but there is a noticeable difference.

What is more insteresting is the combination of inner neck coil with outer bridge coil and the opposite - quite unique tones. This will of course vary due to pickup positions.

 

[mb94952]

The inner/outer coils do sound different - the neck one more than the bridge, but there is a noticeable difference.

What is more insteresting is the combination of inner neck coil with outer bridge coil and the opposite - quite unique tones. This will of course vary due to pickup positions.

I was messing around with pickup positions on my Cirrus and installed single coils in all different configurations. The outer positions (farthest apart from each other, like you're saying) sounded the best. It had a very Alembic like sound. Huge sound.

 

[Kummonen]

Thanks, Fliptrique. Very nice to listen for all these possibilities.


If I'm not mistaken, the whole fingerpicked mp3 goes like this:

00:00 both pickups in single coil
00:08 humbucker + brighter humbucker
00:16 humbucker + darker humbucker
00:24 single coil neck
00:34 brighter humbucker neck
00:42 darker humbucker neck
00:51 single coil bridge
01:00 brighter humbucker bridge
01:08 darker humbucker bridge
01:17 brighter humbucker neck + single coil bridge
01:25 darker humbucker neck + single coil bridge
01:34 single coil neck + brighter humbucker bridge
01:43 single coil neck + darker humbucker bridge
01:50 brighter humbucker neck + darker humbucker bridge

This may be a bit easier to follow.

 

[Fliptrique]

If anyone is interested in these samples I`ve moved them to my soundclound account:

 

[Fliptrique]

Hi.

New samples! It`s Nordstrand DC`s wired a bit different: each coil has a separate 3-way switch that selects the inner coil alone, both coils in pararell or the outer coil alone. It`s like two single coils and a humbucker in one.

Here is the sample order:

1. neck coil / neck coil
2. bridge coil / bridge coil
3. humbucker / humbucker
4. humbucker / neck coil
5. humbucker / bridge coil
6. neck coil / humbucker
7. bridge coil / humbucker
8. humbucker / humbucker
9. bridge coil / neck coil
10. neck coil / bridge coil
11. neck coil / off
11. bridge coil / off
12. humbucker / off
13. off / neck coil
14. off / bridge coil
15. off / humbucker

"neck coil / neck coil" means that both pickups are set to the coil closer to the neck (left one).



Bass is my mayones 5 patriot classic. All passive, 500k pots. Strings are fresh daddario nickels set up extremely low.

I was suprised by the difference between the inner / outer coil tone - they`re just a few centimeters apart but sound noticeably different.
Different Enough for me to have a preference and actually liking some combinations more than others.

 

[5StringPocket]

Good useful samples. Those are nice sounding versatile pickups. Thanks for posting.

 

[EdwardZ]

Thank you so much for the great work you have done! Is it "serial" or "parallel" winding pickups version?