PJ pickups for a to-be-built bass

[JW56789]

It's too subjective to recommend this or that brand, but I will say this:

Should you go with a P/J set (and this would apply for a four or five), I'd steer for one of two things:

Either go with what the pickup builder recommends as a set, built to work together, or . . . . .

Use a humbucking Jazz (whether a side-by-side or stack) to complement the Precision pickup.

Often, guys will stick a trad Jazz in the bridge position (where there's less string movement, and gets worse the closer you get to the bridge), and putting a single coil there to fight that humbucking P Bass pickup right under a big sweet spot is asking a lot of that J pickup. Smart, matched sets use a humbucking J for more output (and no single coil noise), and the two are balanced for each other. You just have a far better chance of a good result rather than just picking two pickups at random.

EMG's Geezer P/J set was carefully developed by Rob Turner and the crew at EMG with Geezer to make a set that's full-bodied working together or separately, and it shows in that product's success.

 

[EddiePlaysBass]

I may forego the P/J configuration. Not sure yet.

Also, as the bass is not built yet, it may end up being a 4 instead of a 5, in which case I may go for Geezers anyway.

What I am looking for, is a wide palette of sounds but mostly "warm and woolly" and retro (definitely not hi-fi). Kind of Gary Thain's bass sound on the Live 73 album of Uriah Heep, or Wonderworld.

But tomorrow I may have a completely different sound in mind

 

[iiipopes]

What is your repertoire? For a 4-string P/J it could be anything from a Fender "vintage" with any number of J pickups, to moderate classic rock with a DiMarzio Model P/J combo, to, well, you get the point. And with two soapbars, the universe is your oyster.

If going 4-string P/J, I do recommend highly getting a humbucking or end-to-end J bridge pickup to keep the noise down. I have had really good luck with a DiMarzio Ultra Jazz as a nice contrast to a vintage P, the Model J to provide some grind, a SD Apollo for a smoother tone addition to a P, and if active, all the flavors of EMG are good, especially with their tonal range depending on the model and extremely low noise.

If going 5-string, there are so many new pickups from generic to mainstream to boutique that a safari with a notebook to keep track of what you do and don't like about each pickup is necessary.

 

[bigtone23]

The Wilde P46/J45 can work with a 5 and get a pretty broad tonal palette. Wire them up to 500K pots and a slightly larger tone cap (like .068uF) so you can roll it off and get thumpy or keep it up and be clean and clear.
Bonus: have a push/pull pot to have the P46 in series or parallel mode, too. In series it's a clean P tone. In parallel, it blends with the J45 as a decent, articulate J emulation.

 

[Steve]

get a set of Sadowsky PJ 5er's

 

[EddiePlaysBass]

I have been thinking of purchasing pickups from MaMa, partly because they are based in Italy and my dad, who is building this bass, is Italian so it'll make his life easier when asking questions. The other reason is, I like the idea of having a bass built by my papa, with pickups by MaMa. Sue me :-D

Anyway, they have schematics for a MM plus P-style pickup but looking at some of their offerings, I am wondering what would be a good combination.

Thinking of their Omnia Punch Man combined with the Puncher Split P but I wonder about this [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] and whether it would replace one of the earlier mentioned, or eliminate the need for 2 pickups altogether.

Someone asked for my repertoire, earlier. It varies quite greatly so I want a diverse tonal palette, from clean to growly, from deep and dubby to high without getting clanky. Currently, the idea is still to make this a fiver strung EADGC, but it could end up being a BEADG, instead.