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Pickup Dilemma

J

Jamsesh

Aug 27, 2008
37
0
Victoria BC, Canada
#1
I recently bought a Squier Deluxe Jazz Active V bass

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and was hoping to have the pickups replaced. I bought Samarium Cobalt Noiseless 5-String Jazz Bass Pickups and then was told that they will not fit in the existing cavities. So I was wondering if there are any fender pickups close to the cobalt noiseless that I could buy and would be able to fit in the cavities. The Squier site says the current pickups are "2 Single-Coil 5-String Jazz Bass® Pickups (Mid & Bridge)" and I was not able to find out the dimensions for the pickups in my bass. Any help is appreciated.
 
#2
Hey Bro,

I have been looking at a lot of J pickups and have found one thing; all J's are the same size length and width wise. The only other difference will be the height of the pickups. You may be able to have a luthier deepen the pickup rout so you can fit the SCN's in the Squier. If this is more trouble than it is wirth to you, then check out Nordstrand. They make a set of noiseless pickups for J Bass, but the coils are side-by-side, and not stacked like other noiseless pups.

Here's the spot: http://www.nordstrandpickups.com/bass-pickups/traditional/traditional.html

Hope this helps,
Beast
 
#3
Ya thanks man that helped a bit. There are some things I should have mentioned in my first post. The string spacing is 19mm on this bass and the pickups are both identical in size. From what a tech told me, the bridge pickup is usually bigger compared to the neck pickup due to the string spacing difference. So to fit in the SCN pickups he would have to do some routing which would leave really big gaps, so he suggested a custom pickgaurd....but I don't want to go through all that trouble just to put some new pups in. Plus it would cost way to much. So basically I would like an easy swap of electronics and no cosmetic changes. I just want to upgrade a cheap bass I'd like to make sound even better than it already does.
 
#4
Sometimes you can just buy 1 pickup instead of a set. You could see what you can get individually and just just get 2 neck pickups. Carvin does this thing with their pickups where both are the same size, but they are size of a standard J Bridge pickup.

I don't know why people gotta be so different.

Besides, Squier is owned by Fender. I really would like to knoe why they didn't use standard J pickups in the thing. I mean, Fender INVENTED the J pickup.:confused:

Warmoth sells pickups in sets OR individually. I don't know who else does, but I'm sure there are plenty. Warmoth is just who I know.
 
#5
kb9wyz said:
Hey Bro,

all J's are the same size length and width wise. The only other difference will be the height of the pickups.
Click to expand...

whoa...hold the phone...

This is not true at all...width-wise, yes...that's where it ends...

take a careful measurement of your pickups...for the record

Squier Deluxe Active V pickups are ~94mm (how do I know that? ;) )

send nordstrandpickups and email and they'll recommend you something to suit.
 
#6
Pilbara, have you modded your Squier Jazz at all? If so what have you done to it? and btw the tech said, "where the screws go in for the pickups don't match up with the SCN Screw positions." Hopefully you understand what im trying to say:confused:
but it makes perfect sense to me.
 
#7
Hey Pilbara,

I suck. I totally didn't mean it the way you thought I did. My wording totally sucked, there.

I meant to say that all standard J sets are going to have two pickups, one "long" for the bridge and one "short" for the neck; therefore, any set of J pickups not specifically marked otherwise, will be this way.

Now if I am wrong about THIS, then I just need to do more research about Jazz pickups.

Thanks for noticing my bad wording, Bro.

Beast
 
#9
Very intereshting, but shtoopid.;)

I am making this thread the basis for a thesis paper proving that the people in charge of big guitar companies are TOTALLY out of touch with reality. Combine this with why G&L and DBZ exist, and I think that it all stands up.

My new motto: Go custom, or go home!

P.S. In case you don't know: Dean Zelinsky is no longer part of Dean guitars, because the Board are a bunch of dingbats. DBZ Guitars was started at the end of August. It must really suck to leave a company with your name on it.
 
#10
kb9wyz said:
Very intereshting, but shtoopid.;)

I am making this thread the basis for a thesis paper proving that the people in charge of big guitar companies are TOTALLY out of touch with reality. Combine this with why G&L and DBZ exist, and I think that it all stands up.

My new motto: Go custom, or go home!

P.S. In case you don't know: Dean Zelinsky is no longer part of Dean guitars, because the Board are a bunch of dingbats. DBZ Guitars was started at the end of August. It must really suck to leave a company with your name on it.
Click to expand...


My apologies, but don't think I understood a single thing about what you are running on about.

My new motto: Just go home. :rollno:
 
#13
kb9wyz said:
Very intereshting, but shtoopid.;)

I am making this thread the basis for a thesis paper proving that the people in charge of big guitar companies are TOTALLY out of touch with reality. Combine this with why G&L and DBZ exist, and I think that it all stands up.
Click to expand...


BIG guitar companies are owned by a bunch of share holders, and they want to see profits. They whole reason why Fender even makes guitars in Mexico and Asia is to be able to have them made cheap, and make more profits. The whole reason they have a cheap brand like Squier, it to sell more cheap guitars to make more profits. This is also why they bought up most of the other guitar makers, with Gibson buying the rest.

At the end of the day it's a business, and you want to make a living. If your margins are so small that you can save money using one size pickup, instead of two, that might make sense for a budget model. The parts are cheap, but tooling up to make them isn't. And the standard Fender pickup are more labor intensive to make than some injection molded bobbins.

My new motto: Go custom, or go home!
Click to expand...

Well I'm a lutheir, so I would tend to agree. But I can't make someone a bass for $300, so the cheap factory instruments serve a purpose. And the quality is way better than the cheap basses I started on back in the late 60's/early 70's!

So there's a place for both. And some people are perfectly happy with a factory bass.

It must really suck to leave a company with your name on it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, like Fender, Tobias, Steinberger, Charvel, Kramer, Bill Lawrence (USA), SWR ...

Sometimes, you don't leave on your own, and sometimes the person who was the financial partner keeps the name. Sometimes it makes sense to sell your company, name and all. Someone once gave me advice to not use my name on my basses because of this very reason. So I don't. But my early builds do.
 
#14
I am having a similar dilemma. I own a 1999 Squier P-bass Special(P/J). I am looking at putting a Dimarzio Ultra Jazz in the bridge position. When I went to look at the measurements I found a bit of an oddity. The pickup width seems to be the size of a J neck pickup, but the shoulders (where it screws it) are spaced out like a J bridge pickup. It also appears that the string spacing at the bridge positions is too narrow for a J bridge pickup, but just right for a J neck pickup. If you get pickups with slug pole pieces, this is very important to measure. What I am planning on doing is getting the neck pickup and slightly sanding the insides of the shoulder routing to fit it in (it is a very small difference in spacing).

I resized the diagrams for Seymour Duncan pickups because they have correct proportions, but the diagrams are just images. I printed those out, measured them to be sure, and then used those as a template to observe the string spacing. When I get home today, maybe I will post the resized version I used.

Has anybody had a similar experience? I think in general, you need to do some measuring before replacing the J style pickups in any bass, even from Fender. Measure twice, buy once.
 

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