Replacements for Bartolini 9S pickups

[sunbeast]

We disagree. Unless the bass is vibrating enough that the pickups are buzzing off the screws - intermittently losing contact with them (that'd be an awful lot of vibration), the pickups are very much hard mounted to the body. I know it looks like the foam would isolate them, but the screws bypass that. I work in a company where we have shock mounts (vibration isolation) in a lot of our products - your mental picture is one that is common with such things, but if you examine the forces enough, you'll eventually realize that the foam in this case doesn't isolate against small vibration.

The pickups are absolutely not "hard"-mounted to the screws at all, if they were you wouldn't be able to push down on the pickup and effect movement- they would be literally static on the plane of the body. I never said the foam isolates the pickups, just that it buffers/dampens vibration. The pickup is suspended by a soft and absorptive material, and even when the screws remain taught against the top of the pickup casings under vibration the foam is still absorbing energy. How absorptive is of course dependent on the material and how tight it is jammed in there (as @dwizum mentioned). It obviously isn't a precision-engineered suspension, but then pretty much nothing in the guitar industry is (or needs to be). The important thing is that it works well enough if done right.

 

[micguy]

The pickups are absolutely not "hard"-mounted to the screws at all, if they were you wouldn't be able to push down on the pickup and effect movement- they would be literally static on the plane of the body.

If you look at my previous post, you'll see that I said the foam doesn't isolate against small vibration (what we get when we play and things resonate a bit). The fact that you can push down hard enough to disengage the pickup from the screws by compressing the foam is a different thing - small vibrations aren't nearly that strong, and won't disengage the pickups from their contact with the bottoms of the screw heads. The pickup is "hard mounted" (for small vibrations) to the bottoms of the screw heads - that's why it stays at that height. Those screws are hard mounted to the body. So, for forces below the force necessary to start compressing the foam, the pickups are hard mounted (vibrationally) to the body.

If you were held to the floor by a big monster pushing down on you through a block of foam, and the ground shook from an earthquake (all the while the monster keeps up his force pinning you to the floor), you would absolutely feel the ground shake - you're pinned to it by the force of the foam. You're hard mounted to the floor - the foam doesn't change that. This is the same situation, but just upside down - the monster is beneath you, and you're being pressed against the bottom of the screw heads. If they shake, you will shake. If the screws were hard mounted to the floor, then the bottoms of the screw heads are hard mounted to the floor

I realize this isn't intuitive. I have a degree in this stuff because I learned to see things the right (not the easiest) way.

 

[dwizum]

@micguy, are you able to use your knowledge in this area to explain what the OP is seeing happen in his bass, or to explain how to fix it?

 

[ad9000]

I would try temporarily mounting the pickups with double sided foam tape, cut to size and layered to get the pickups to approximately the height they need to be. Obviously that's a crude and not permanent remedy, but least it will allow you to take the screws out of the equation and see if the problem goes away.

I've got a couple sets of 9S Jazz pickups that I've had in various basses, and I've never experienced anything remotely like this. I'm not saying that to discount what you're experiencing, which is pretty strange.

 

[sunbeast]

If you look at my previous post, you'll see that I said the foam doesn't isolate against small vibration (what we get when we play and things resonate a bit). The fact that you can push down hard enough to disengage the pickup from the screws by compressing the foam is a different thing - small vibrations aren't nearly that strong, and won't disengage the pickups from their contact with the bottoms of the screw heads. The pickup is "hard mounted" (for small vibrations) to the bottoms of the screw heads - that's why it stays at that height. Those screws are hard mounted to the body. So, for forces below the force necessary to start compressing the foam, the pickups are hard mounted (vibrationally) to the body.

If you were held to the floor by a big monster pushing down on you through a block of foam, and the ground shook from an earthquake (all the while the monster keeps up his force pinning you to the floor), you would absolutely feel the ground shake - you're pinned to it by the force of the foam. You're hard mounted to the floor - the foam doesn't change that. This is the same situation, but just upside down - the monster is beneath you, and you're being pressed against the bottom of the screw heads. If they shake, you will shake. If the screws were hard mounted to the floor, then the bottoms of the screw heads are hard mounted to the floor

I realize this isn't intuitive. I have a degree in this stuff because I learned to see things the right (not the easiest) way.

A hard mount is a direct joint, like a neck joint- if you put a piece of lightly compressed weatherstripping into your neck body joint, by your logic the foam would not absorb any of the energy transferred between body and neck short of a direct hit that compresses the foam enough to loosen the screw-head contact? How do you quantify what is a “small” enough vibration to not be absorbed at all by the suspension material when you have next to no information about the material being used or how much it is compressed? How do you quantify that a pickup jammed into a tight pickup cavity making direct contact on all sides with the body wood sees the same amount of vibrational force as a pickup lightly suspended into four small screw heads? Like @dwizum I have quite a bit of direct experience that runs counter to what you seem so certain about.

 

[BobaMosfett]

I would try temporarily mounting the pickups with double sided foam tape, cut to size and layered to get the pickups to approximately the height they need to be. Obviously that's a crude and not permanent remedy, but least it will allow you to take the screws out of the equation and see if the problem goes away.

I've got a couple sets of 9S Jazz pickups that I've had in various basses, and I've never experienced anything remotely like this. I'm not saying that to discount what you're experiencing, which is pretty strange.

Taping the pickups in place for testing purposes was suggested earlier, and I tried it; see post #16 for a recording. The problem did go away without the screws.
The problem also occurred with another set of 9S pickups, wich I had my dealer order and install when I still thought the pickups themselves were microphonic.
All of this leaves me puzzled as to why ferrous screws are the standard for mounting magnetic devices such as pickups. On the other hand, I have never experienced this with more traditional pickups where the casing is separate from the pickup itself.

 

[sunbeast]

Thanks! I'm not sure what you mean by pickups binding on the screws. Would putting electrical tape around the screws so they don't touch the pickups be what you mean?

Anyway, the heat shrink didn't go through the holes, so that didn't work. I did put silicone tubing around the screws under the pickups. I hoped that this would dampen the screws, but I hear no improvement. Later this week I'll get some electrical tape.
What DID help was taking out the screws and taping the pickups in the body, wich was an earlier suggestion.
I recorded some rumbling on the strings while muting them. With the screws you can hear (with headphones!) the ringing of the strings between the nut and the tuners, and with the tape that's gone.
Screws: Dropbox - BartsScrews.mp3 - Simplify your life
Tape: Dropbox - BartsTaped.mp3 - Simplify your life

I managed to miss this in all this other discussion. Are you certain that is the ringing of the strings behind the nut? Meaning if you dampen the strings behind the nut with foam or something else while playing it goes away? I’ve rarely heard that level of sympathetic ringing from strings behind the nut on a bass before unless the strings didn’t have enough break-angle at the nut- it sounds similar to a Jazzmaster or Jaguar guitar where the ringing of the strings between bridge and tremolo is essentially part of the sound of the instrument (unless intentionally dampened or adjusted to minimize via neck shims and raising the bridge). I assume the pickup height in both recordings is fairly consistent (this would probably be fairly difficult to do with tape)? And the screws are fully engaged/tight in the recording?

 

[BobaMosfett]

I managed to miss this in all this other discussion. Are you certain that is the ringing of the strings behind the nut? Meaning if you dampen the strings behind the nut with foam or something else while playing it goes away? I’ve rarely heard that level of sympathetic ringing from strings behind the nut on a bass before unless the strings didn’t have enough break-angle at the nut- it sounds similar to a Jazzmaster or Jaguar guitar where the ringing of the strings between bridge and tremolo is essentially part of the sound of the instrument (unless intentionally dampened or adjusted to minimize via neck shims and raising the bridge). I assume the pickup height in both recordings is fairly consistent (this would probably be fairly difficult to do with tape)? And the screws are fully engaged/tight in the recording?

Yes, I’m certain that is the ringing of the strings behind the nut. Acoustically it’s not different from any other bass I have, but it seems to be picked up through the screws, wich is why you don’t hear it on the recording without the screws.

Pickup height is consistent, and screws were tight on the recording with screws.

I’m telling you, it’s the screws!

 

[BobaMosfett]

I was thinking (and the subject is admittedly way over my head), but is it conceivable that this pickup/screw behavior might be caused by the way they are wired to the preamp, or the way the preamp is wired in the bass?
The way to make sure of course, is to wire the pickups in another bass, or to wire them straight to the output. I can't do that myself, but I can ask someone who can.
But what I'm asking is, is that a realistic possibility, or am I clutching at straws?

 

[dwizum]

I'd say that's not realistic as an explanation of the problem. Bartolini single coil pickups are dirt simple in terms of the wiring, there's really no way to get it wrong. But that said I think we're grasping at straws here. I don't think we really talked about the bass at all, what kind of preamp is it and how is it wired? Can we see some pics?

 

[BobaMosfett]

We're talking about a Moon JJ4; a Larry Graham signature. I bought it directly from a Japanese dealer, and this behavior was from the start. The dealer referred me to Moon, and they never replied.
The preamp is a Bartolini NTBT, wich is standard in this model, just like the pickups. I can't imagine mr. Graham's bass behaves like this; it would be unusable at his stage volume with his love for fuzz.
So I assume something is wrong in my bass/preamp/pickups, but I can't figure out what it is.

I will take a picture of the electronics later, and post it here.

 

[BobaMosfett]

All 8 screws are now wrapped in electrical tape. I hear no noteworthy improvement.
Every stainless screw I can find online is either too thick, or too short, or the head is too big.
I'm at a loss... Here are some pictures of the control cavity I promised. Let me know if they are too small.

 

[BobaMosfett]

Potentionally good news, to whom it may concern: I managed to find a webstore that sells stainless and brass screws in a few sizes close to what I need, plus they sell them in manageable quantities, so I don't have to buy 500 screws only to find out they don't fit or solve the problem after all.
I ordered 3 sets. Fingers crossed.

 

[BobaMosfett]

The screws arrived, and none of them were reacting to a magnet. One set of brass screws, and two of stainless steel.
So with high hopes I took the ones with the best fit (SS), and replaced the original screws with those.
But: no improvement at all!!

So apparently the problem is in the pickups after all. When they are attached through the screw holes to the body with something rigid (so not tape), they pick up vibrations in the body on a problematic level. The material of the screws doesn't seem to matter.

 

[dwizum]

That's too bad. Look on the bright side: you now have several different colors of screws to choose from!

I know these things have been discussed in the thread already, but if the bass were in my hands, I would be focused on adjusting the mounting - trying more or less foam under the pickups, trying springs or silicone tube instead of foam, etc. It takes a couple minutes and it can make a difference in "microphonic" pickups. If that didn't work, I'd swap in any old Jazz pickup. Buy some in the classifieds, try them, then resell them. Or take it to a music store and ask if they'll try another pickup - most shops will have a bunch of random used pickups and it only takes a few minutes to swap one in and try it.

 

[BobaMosfett]

That's too bad. Look on the bright side: you now have several different colors of screws to choose from!

I know these things have been discussed in the thread already, but if the bass were in my hands, I would be focused on adjusting the mounting - trying more or less foam under the pickups, trying springs or silicone tube instead of foam, etc. It takes a couple minutes and it can make a difference in "microphonic" pickups. If that didn't work, I'd swap in any old Jazz pickup. Buy some in the classifieds, try them, then resell them. Or take it to a music store and ask if they'll try another pickup - most shops will have a bunch of random used pickups and it only takes a few minutes to swap one in and try it.

Just spoke to my favorite local store, and he suggested screwing the pickups all the way down to make the foam tighter, to see if that makes any difference. It didn't.
All your sugestions have been tried, except the pickup swap of another type.

The only thing that made the problem go away was holding the pickups in place with some tape.

So now I'm back at my original question in this thread: can anyone suggest other pickups that sound close to Bartolini 9S's?

 

[BobaMosfett]

Yesterday my dealer did some testing inside and outside the bass, and we tried different pickups in the bass. The conclusion can only be that I have a rare case of microphonic Bartolini's. My dealer was as surprised as anyone here. Also the fact that both pickups (bridge and neck) were equally microphonic is very strange. My guess is a production error.
Since I really preferred the sound of the Barts in this bass, we're going to order new ones hoping they have no issues.

 

[dwizum]

Keep us posted!

 

[Freaklight]

Thank you for your thorough reply!
I agree that we know nothing for sure; I would very much like to try different pickups in this bass, as well as these pickups with a different bass. But I don't have extra pickups or basses to do that at the moment.

However, I also feel like I'm not getting across why I think the problem is in the pickup/screw combination. (Maybe because English is not my main language)
Another example: pickups wired in the bass, bass connected to an amp, holding a pickup in your hand. Lightly tapping the pickup with a fingernail does not make a sound through the amp. Putting a screw through one of the holes makes a loud sound. Leaving the screw and tapping again with a fingernail (the pickup, not the screw!) is clearly audible. Installing the pickup and making sure the pickups and screws are not moving freely: tapping still audible.

Taping the pickups in place would be a good test, I agree! I will try that out this week.

Had the same issue with my 57cbjd set.