Pup reccomendation for Black knight bass

[Animalmk]

Right, so my girlfriend has this dark knight bass (the same as picture, although hers has stickers and stuff) and she letting me use it as a back up and letting me change out the pups as she has since stopped playing bass.

I'm a P-bass guy generally speaking, so I am kind of lost on what pups to put in that complement each other, especially as it appears to have a music man at the bridge and a j bass at the neck.

The main thing is I want to convert it from active to passive.

Any help would be appreciated

 

[Skybone]

Reckon it depends on how much you want to spend on it. The Black Knight's weren't the most expensive instruments around (IIRC they were the "house" brand for the "Gear4Music" website), so it becomes more a choice on whether you want to spend money on that bass, or move it on and get something else.

Wilkinson gear is cheap and has a good reputation, and should be readily available throughout the UK (through JHS), or Kent Armstrong through WD Music.

If you want to spend a bit more, then Seymour Duncan offer a good selection.

If you want to splash out a bit more, there's plenty of UK based pickup makers, like Gemini, The Creamery, Bare Knuckle etc.

 

[Zoobiedood]

Cool looking bass! Thing is, decide on what you don't like about the sound now and what you want it to sound like. Going from active to passive, you will have to change out the pots, at least.

 

[Animalmk]

so it becomes more a choice on whether you want to spend money on that bass, or move it on and get something else.

If I want to keep my man veggies, I don't really have the choice of moving it on :L

I don't need to it be mind blowing, just decent enough to be a good enough sounding back up, so I can go for the cheaper option if they're better than the stock. Is there any particular models of wilkinson you would recommend? Or I could stretch to Seymour Duncan's within reason.

 

[Animalmk]

Cool looking bass! Thing is, decide on what you don't like about the sound now and what you want it to sound like. Going from active to passive, you will have to change out the pots, at least.

The main thing really is to get rid of the actives, They sound a bit weak to me and I don't like the idea of a battery dying on me when I need it; the design of it means it's always draining battery for some reason, and the battery compartment is behind a plate which is screwed on.

The kind of sound I go for is a decent amount of low end rumble, a scoop in the mids to not invade on the guitar, and a bit of extra treble for a little bite

 

[Skybone]

If I want to keep my man veggies, I don't really have the choice of moving it on :L

I don't need to it be mind blowing, just decent enough to be a good enough sounding back up, so I can go for the cheaper option if they're better than the stock. Is there any particular models of wilkinson you would recommend? Or I could stretch to Seymour Duncan's within reason.

LOL, you could always try and make it into a positive for her, though that's always a bit risky, especially for the danglies!

I'm afraid I don't know the specific pickups in the Wilkinson range that well. If you look at the online reviews of the Wilkinson designed "Vintage" guitar range ([Invalid or Expired Link Removed] or [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]). Just find something that'll fit.

You could always trawl through eBay & look for a second hand Seymour/DiMarzio/other pickup that someone's removed from their guitar. That'll be cheaper than buying new.

As far as electrics goes, you'll need to find the wiring diagrams for a 2 Volume /2 Tone.

 

[Zoobiedood]

One problem you may run into is that Music Man type pickups are designed to be run into a preamp. I never used one without (it would be really low output), so it may be a bit of a search finding passive replacements that don't require some sort of preamp. Completely replacing the preamp and the MM pickup alone could be more expensive than the bass, as well. You could:

-Just put a passive J bass pickup in, rewire with passive electronics, disconnect the MM pickup
-Put the money toward a good P-Bass.