Pickup or electronics first?

[sheepshank]

Greetings!

I have a question: what´s most important, the pickup or the electronics?

The backdrop for this question is, I have this Spectorcore that I use a lot. Lately I have grown tired of how it sounds and I have been looking into buying a secondhand Gibson humbucker lead from an SG bass and install that. I think it will fit right in there. Physically at least, dont know about the ohms and amps though.

The dilemma is this; I dont think the pots and cables are the best. Maybe the EMG HZ will come to life if I just change the electronics instead?

Earlier I have tidied up the control cavity and shortened the wires, and that made a significant difference. I kinda like the bass, and even if I didnt, theres no second hand market for these here, so Im stuck with it and got to make the best of it

best,
Espen

 

[Crater]

what´s most important, the pickup or the electronics?

Pickups.
The pickup is the source of the sound. All passive electronics do is either reduce the signal level (volume) and bleed off some treble to ground (tone). There's no tone magic to be gained from expensive pots, capacitors or wire.

 

[Axstar]

Both! I keep any mods or upgrades in the round. No point soldering a good pickup into a scruffy wiring harness or cheap no-name preamp.

 

[David Jayne]

I'd think the biggest change would be to go to a single coil pickup, like a Nordstrand Fat Stack. Stacked coils if you need the humcancelling. Not sure if it'll fit though- it's a Bart size last I checked. This would (likely) give a brighter and more lively tone.

 

[Bassdirty]

Both! I keep any mods or upgrades in the round. No point soldering a good pickup into a scruffy wiring harness or cheap no-name preamp.

True, if wiring is truly.. "scruffy". If its really cheap wiring, but functioning correctly, you'd be fine with just doin the pickup though.

 

[David Jayne]

Nothing wrong with that wiring that I can see. Looks just like the inside of my Pedulla or Modulus.

 

[sheepshank]

Thanks for the input, I will surely check out the Nordstrand Fat Stack. See some reviews and tests. The EMG35 size seems to be a perfect fit though.

How about that Gibson lead humbucker? It might be a bit fiddly to install, but will it sound good? I might get it for about $50.

 

[sikamikanico]

No experience with them, but I hear the HZ model is not great. Chances are any good pickup will be an improvement.

That said, I’m not sure Gibson SG is a good bet... I’m not sure if they’re the right size, might require extra work, and may not be worth it. But then again, I’m not exactly a fan of that sound.

I’d try to find a used EMG35-sized pickup, maybe Nordstrand, Delano, Aguilar, etc... it’s a common size, and you can get dual coils, single coils, split coils, stacked coils, sidewinders... lots of flavors!

 

[sheepshank]

I’d try to find a used EMG35-sized pickup, maybe Nordstrand, Delano, Aguilar, etc... it’s a common size, and you can get dual coils, single coils, split coils, stacked coils, sidewinders... lots of flavors!

Hi sikamikanico, thanks for the reply,..

I have a -71 Gibson EB-OL, so I thought it would be a cool idea to fit a similar pup in this bass too, but...

..the more I thought about it, the more Im leaning towards a custom pickup. Ive been checking out some pickups lately, watched a lot of reviews and such, and all the big brands sounds so much better than the HZ. Although I have managed to get some more tone out of it by raising it as close to the strings it can go without hitting.

Now I think I´ve landed on a Nordstrand Zen Blade, maybe even with a series/parallell coil tap too. It will drop right in there, have seen the specs. I really like that thump in the alnico/sidewinder pickups and I used to live at a place called Nordstrand before too! Waiting for the world to normalize now, so I can get back to my quest for tone

 

[groove pump]

I bought a Spector NS-94 (Korean) many years ago that included EMG Hz's and a bass/treble preamp. I rather loved the neck and fit of that bass, but the sound eventually seemed under-whelming and I decided to swap in a set of active EMG's along with a 3-band preamp.

I was hoping for a big bump in something, maybe tone or clarity or who knows. No luck. Eventually I found a new home for that bass. But I can also say that I've done pickup swaps in other basses and hit on some rather nice improvements.

Only offering that a "guts swap" may give you something more, but it might not. Don't expect a miracle with your sound and you may be happy with how things turn out.