Hey there pickups gurus,
Here's the deal: I play Dingwall basses these days. 3 of them. But I still have an old parallel fretted bass I played a lot before I could afford great instruments and don't want to part with.
The bass is a Fame Baphomet NTB 4, which is basically a Warwick knockoff made by Mayones for a big german store.
34.25'' scale, amazaque body, laminated through-body mahogany neck, wenge fretboard. Standard "jazz" pickup routing, standard 19mm string spacing.
It came stock with MEC active pickups (vol/blend) and stacked 2-band EQ but I'm not a fan of batteries - even less when you have to take out 4 screws to get to it. So I gutted the MEC and installed some Crel from neighbouring France which were advertised to be voiced for exotic hardwood basses and had very good reviews.
Turns out I liked the MEC sound much better. Also the vol/vol/tone wiring definitely isn't working for me.
Right now I lent the bass to my cousin who's starting out but when I get it back I want to get it right.
I'm fairly certain I'll get a rotary selector from Dingwall (4 positions : neck, both in series, both in parallel, bridge). A blend would be cool too but in the passive realm they're just 2 stacked volumes with the inherent treble drop in intermediary positions.
Here are a few pickups I'm looking at - I'd like to hear your thoughts on those and alternate suggestions.
- Q-tuner 2.0 (neo-based pickup - closer to my Dingwalls?)
- Lace Alumitone (lightweight and often compared to active EMGs)
- Good old Bartolinis (played a few and always liked their throaty voicing)
Unfortunately the Crel pickups have a pretty unique solderless wiring thing going on (part of the pickup's bobin can be bypassed with a push-pull on the corresponding volume) so I can't even try the selector with those.
I'll first go with a regular passive tone and maybe eventually add a Stellartone Tonestyler or something if I feel like it.
Here's a cover I did with the Fame and its stock electronics:
Here's the deal: I play Dingwall basses these days. 3 of them. But I still have an old parallel fretted bass I played a lot before I could afford great instruments and don't want to part with.
The bass is a Fame Baphomet NTB 4, which is basically a Warwick knockoff made by Mayones for a big german store.
34.25'' scale, amazaque body, laminated through-body mahogany neck, wenge fretboard. Standard "jazz" pickup routing, standard 19mm string spacing.
It came stock with MEC active pickups (vol/blend) and stacked 2-band EQ but I'm not a fan of batteries - even less when you have to take out 4 screws to get to it. So I gutted the MEC and installed some Crel from neighbouring France which were advertised to be voiced for exotic hardwood basses and had very good reviews.
Turns out I liked the MEC sound much better. Also the vol/vol/tone wiring definitely isn't working for me.
Right now I lent the bass to my cousin who's starting out but when I get it back I want to get it right.
I'm fairly certain I'll get a rotary selector from Dingwall (4 positions : neck, both in series, both in parallel, bridge). A blend would be cool too but in the passive realm they're just 2 stacked volumes with the inherent treble drop in intermediary positions.
Here are a few pickups I'm looking at - I'd like to hear your thoughts on those and alternate suggestions.
- Q-tuner 2.0 (neo-based pickup - closer to my Dingwalls?)
- Lace Alumitone (lightweight and often compared to active EMGs)
- Good old Bartolinis (played a few and always liked their throaty voicing)
Unfortunately the Crel pickups have a pretty unique solderless wiring thing going on (part of the pickup's bobin can be bypassed with a push-pull on the corresponding volume) so I can't even try the selector with those.
I'll first go with a regular passive tone and maybe eventually add a Stellartone Tonestyler or something if I feel like it.
Here's a cover I did with the Fame and its stock electronics:
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