P - Bass Tone & Pickups?

[verstft]

have to use extreme settings to make it sound ok, something is still wrong

This.

Also, when it comes to caps and tone pot resistance. Measure. Values will have a much greater effect than fancy pio vs propylene. A bad solder on a fancy push cloth wiring harness will have a much more adverse effect than using regular wire that came stock.

Welcome to the forum!

 

[JGbassman]

The geezers are just plug and play, no caps or soldering, everything is built in, matched and ready to go. With both controls maxed it's nice and growly, if you back off the volume and tone a bit it mellows out and warms up the sound quite a bit. I'm very impressed with these pickups. I will be putting the pj set in another precision I have sometime this winter.

 

[LT131]

Semi thread hijack: I have a MIM P body of similar vintage that I am just about to build up. I figured I'd have to replace the pickups. Any opinion on whether replacing the pots have that much impact? I know the Geezers come with new pots. But I was looking at some other pickup replacements that are just the pickups.

Since pots are just a variable resistor, how much variation could there be? The cap on the tone pot is another issue, as I know caps can vary tremendously.

Pots wear out, get dirty and break. They are cheap.

 

[JimmyM]

Most people leave the switch on the old BA-115 in the middle. They dropped it for the BA-115 V2, and I believe this is the reason.

 

[The Ballzz]

HOLY CRAPPOLA!
First, I must say that this is one of the busiest and most active forums I've ever participated in!

Next, I'll comment, in order since my last post.

Bass has a nice setup, with nice relief and action set near factory specs (maybe even a tad lower). It plays well with no fret buzzes anywhere, except of course, when you beat it like a red headed step child!

As far as amp functionality, having been a sound engineer/sound company owner, as well as repairing/modifying gear my whole life and custom building tube guitar amps, I can assure you that the amp is doing what it designed to do, no scratchy or intermittent pots, just possibly the super heavy duty speaker may not be a perfect match and could affect some subtleties of tone. As to having extreme settings on the amp, I'm now at the middle position of the "STYLE" switch and the tone pots in the 11:00 to 1:00 position and all is much more even. Master volume is dimed and gain is set at just lower than the onset of distortion. At this setting the amp is as loud as it can ever be and the only volume change possible is down! Did I mention that with the 8 ohm speaker instead of the original 4 ohm, it puts out "at best" 75 to 100 watts? Definitely will need at least a couple more watts for gigging!

Remember, as I said in the first post, I'm new to this bass thing. A couple hours of practicing parts while experimenting with settings, along with the great input from you folks, has helped me immensely! Having done a lot of setups on my 1dozen or so 6-string guitars has taught me the importance of good pots, and electronics overall. I am also quite adept at setups, including truss rod and action setting and measurements, as I've been a gigging guitarist for +/- 40 years and always do all my own instrument work and work for other band mates. I will likely look into some new PUPS also.

Thanx 2 All 4 The Great Replies,
Gene

 

[Robert Sperling]

The electronics and pickups are weak in these basses, and it will make a big difference in changing them out for higher quality parts.

There are many types of pickups to change them with, and this is a very subjective field to say the least. I have an older mim p bass, and was having issues as well regarding the weak sounding pickups. I researched different brands, eventually going with EMG geezer butler signature pickups. These are a passive set that comes with all the electronics to completely overhaul the electronics.

Regardless if whether you like geezer butlers tone, these pickups are highly versitile, and the have a nice bump in the midrange that sits very well in a mix. They were patterned after an early 60's model that can go from a great growl to a very well mannered smooth tone. It took a weak sounding bass and turned it into the best sounding p bass I've ever heard.

I strongly suggest you do a search on those pickups here and look into them. I have yet to play this bass at a show where at least one musician has not come up and asked about my tone because they really liked it. This is a true testimony on how well they sound.

I 2nd the Geezer Butler pups, I have them on a P/J bass and they absolutely kill!

 

[HeadWind]

I 2nd the Geezer Butler pups, I have them on a P/J bass and they absolutely kill!

I actually have the geezers on a passive P/J Jaguar. I agree, sound great.

 

[R&B]

Gene, welcome to TB! Great thread and a nice demonstration of the helpfulness and collective wisdom of TB members. I am considering a pickup upgrade of my very first bass, Black Beauty, a pristine 1998 MIM Precision. It plays great but sounds brittle.

I agree that the GZR is a great-sounding, mid-forward system that gigs well. My fave of all time is the D.Allen with a vintage tone circuit: percussive and ballsy in the style of a great '70s P. (I have read that Flying Mojo is even more so.) As I already have a spare Fender '62 Original lying about, I think that will be the call. Replacing the ceramic magnets with Alnico should smooth out the tone a lot.

Oh, and strings matter. Old, dead rounds versus old, broken-in flats: night and day.