Pickup Design on PJ style bass?

[scottie65]

I bought a Mitchell MB200 the other day at a give away price for I liked the neck dimensions. Plays well and is comfortable. My questions is the PJ style pickups are somewhat different than I am used to. They have one large magnet(pole) for each string instead of the normal two smaller poles per string. Are there pros or cons to having these or is there a reason they were made this way instead of the more common pickups on this style bass? Just curious. I know they are inexpensive and may change them out later and did not know even for a minor upgrade if the Wilkinson pickups would give better response.

 

[bigtone23]

A big, single pole has a faster, more explosive attack/transient. The dual poles has a sort of 'compression' on the front end transient of the note.

 

[scottie65]

A big, single pole has a faster, more explosive attack/transient. The dual poles has a sort of 'compression' on the front end transient of the note.

Thanks for the info bigtone23.

 

[Snert]

A big, single pole has a faster, more explosive attack/transient. The dual poles has a sort of 'compression' on the front end transient of the note.

I'm very dubious about that. Lots of other factors determine how a pickup sounds beyond the size of the pole pieces.

 

[bigtone23]

I'm very dubious about that. Lots of other factors determine how a pickup sounds beyond the size of the pole pieces.

Not necessarily the size of the pole pieces, but whether they are single right under the string or doubled on each side of the string. The 51-56 single coil P had small single poles, but the explosive transient from those single poles, the resonant peak of the rolled off tone control and the Tweed Bassman loaded with the single 15" resulted in a lot of blown speakers and amps. The 15K resistor on the tone control to limit the resonant peak, using 4x10" to raise up the resonant frequency of the cab vs a single 15" (as well as 4 speakers could better absorb the amp's wattage/current spike from the transients), and the design change to dual poles on the split coil P (which limited transients while the deeper lows were rolled off and more lower mids entered the spectrum) saw a great reduction in blown up amps and speakers.