pickup resistance - should I care about matching?

[cdlynch]

I have a bass with a couple of wide spaced humbuckers, each in the 5K range, and I'm considering adding a Nordstrand 51P4S in the P position. I searched the entire web and found nothing about it's electrical specs, and I don't know if there's a good reason to care.

If @Carey Nordstrand cares to weigh in, that'd be fine too.

Thanks for any thoughts on the subject!

 

[iiipopes]

The issue isn't necessarily the resistance, although the Nordstrand 51P4S will probably have a significantly higher meter reading, probably in the 9 to 11 Kohms range.

The stock pickups could have the particular reading for one or more of the following reasons: 1) less turns of wire; 2) larger diameter of wire, which has less resistance per unit length; 3) the coils of the pickup in parallel instead of series; although #1 is the most likely.

The bigger issue is matching the polarity of the coils and the magnets to match, so if you do order a pickup, make sure it comes in 4-wire mode with a diagram. On my custom half-fanned P/J, I had to try all four humbucking configurations of the Ultra Jazz pickup I put in the bridge position in order to match the Rick HB-1 in the D-G P position for both coil polarity and magnet polarity so I did not have dropout from phase incompatibility.

 

[cdlynch]

All his split coils are three conductor: black and grey (both ground w/o preamp) and white (hot.)

In a perfect world I'd just get three Nords, but that's a bit steep right now.

 

[line6man]

DC resistance doesn't really mean anything. It's just something that is easy to get a measure of with a common multimeter. Any number of factors weigh into the DC resistance of a pickup. Even taking your measurements at a different temperature can alter it.

 

[cdlynch]

So what I should really care about is output level, and I doubt there's any reliable way to know that without buying and testing in a freshly routed bass.

What I have now is soapbars that just say "Dual Rail" - no mention of OBL, but I suspect they're fake because I got them used for very cheap from Mouradian, and he made no claims about their origin. I'm less than psyched with them even though they were an upgrade from the originals that wouldn't pick up the E string.

I only use the neck pickup, and they don't get an interesting scoop when blended, so I should just go for it and put the Nord in the P spot, and either remove the existing neck pickup, or move it even closer to the neck than it already is. Chances are I'll use the Nord 99% of the time anyway, as that's the position that sounds best on my other basses.

 

[iiipopes]

Post a picture of your bass so we know a little bit more to answer this last question about where to mount the pickup.

 

[cdlynch]

I'm all set with the new pickup location. It's going to be where a Rickenbacker 4003 bridge pickup goes, which is just a bit closer to the bridge than the center of a split P goes. Specifically, the mirror of the 3rd fret harmonic, and the Rick bridge pickup is centered between that harmonic and the next higher one.

The traditional position for the '51 pickup is closer to the neck under the mirror of the 4th fret harmonic. That's the current location of my neck pickup, and I'm not into it. I might move it to the Rick 4003 neck position under the 24th fret harmonic, but I'll start by not bothering as I tend to like the brighter positions, and there's only so much wood on this bass to remove!

Here's the pic anyway. SB-350, probably a '72:



...and I'm pretty sure those are 5-string pickups. If I had known more at the time of the "upgrade" I would have done it differently.