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P bass, too bright.

#41
Well, the Fralin is my favorite vintage-voiced pickup, so I'm inclined to agree with those suggesting an overwound version to fatten things up and tame the treble. There's also Duncan's SPB-2, which is a heavily overwound version of the SPB-1, and has serious phatness with reduced treble. I found it a little too boomy for my tastes, and ultimately missed having that ringing treble available when I wanted it, but it's an excellent all around pickup that I think many players would like.
 
#43
uOpt said:
The SPB-2 is not an overwound version of the vintage class SPB-1. The SPB-2 uses entirely different wire. The lack of treble is from a drastically lowered resonance peak. It has very little in common with the SPB-1.
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Well, Seymour Duncan's site says: "Similar to the Vintage in construction, but with extra coil windings for increased output, enhanced low end response, and a fuller sound." The specs in the tone chart indicate different cable, not different coil winding wire (though this may be true), and both use alnico 5 magnets. I'd say they have something in common.
 
#44
Nedmundo said:
Well, Seymour Duncan's site says: "Similar to the Vintage in construction, but with extra coil windings for increased output, enhanced low end response, and a fuller sound." The specs in the tone chart indicate different cable, not different coil winding wire (though this may be true), and both use alnico 5 magnets. I'd say they have something in common.
Click to expand...

That is a misleading description. SD uses the term "extra windings" liberally, both for the process of putting on a few more winds of the same wind and for using thinner wire. The latter changes everything about the pickup as the thinner wire has more resistance for the same distance and cause higher capacitance and does who knows what to inductance. All electrical properties change dramatically.

In the specific case of the SPB-1 and SPB-2, you would not even be able to get enough of the thick SPB-1 wire onto the coils to get as much resistance as the SPB-2. The coil wouldn't fit under the cover anymore.

I don't like it but I don't see other manufacturers doing better in their pickup descriptions.

The thinner awg43 and awg44 wires are what guitarists use for medium and high gain pickups, and they can sound a bit odd in many bass situations. I don't like to see bassists try them before they try "normal" wire which I consider awg42 which is what you find on vintage and vintage style pickups.
 
#45
^^^Fair enough, that makes perfect sense, and accurate descriptions (a la Fralin) would be nice. Regardless of the wire used, the SPB-2 produces an extra fat version of classic P-bass tone that's similar to some pickups Fender has used at various times. I used to have a 1994 MIJ Fender P with a stock pickup that sounded very much like the SPB-2, so much so, in fact, that I sold it after I installed an SPB-2 in a 2004 American Series Fender.
 

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