Rewiring a six string to be passive?

[DoubleL]

I have a Shine SB-26 six string bass, which is a cheap and cheerful brand in the UK. I think people previously have noted similarities with some of the models on the Rondo website.

Despite being a budget model, it's very solidly built and great to play, but I have an issue with the electronics and pickups. The pickups seem a bit feeble and the controls don't seem to affect the sound much. The other problem is that when I decided to put new knobs on, one of the pots fell apart. As a result, I'm thinking about rewiring it as passive and replacing the pickups. I've wired up a Jazz and Telecaster copies from scratch previously so I'm quite happy soldering. The bass has four knobs currently so I was thinking a volume and tone for each pickup might do it.

However I'm not sure what pickups to look for. The ones in it seem to be a standard size as they match the measurements of a Bartolini M4 which is referred to on their website as the EMG 40 shape.

Does anyone have any recommendations for what pickups might work well in this sort of setup? The intriguing Q-tuner ones look like they will fit, but two of those would cost more than the whole bass did.

Thanks for any advice, when it comes to tinkering with four strings I know where I am but not so much with six strings!

 

[tubby.twins]

It really depends on the kind of tone you want to get from the bass. What don't you like about the tone? What kind of music do you want to play, and which aspects of bass tone are most important to you? Punch, clarity, warmth, detail, harmonics or fundamentals?

Since your bass has standard-sized "soapbar" pickups, you have a lot of options out there. I would start by checking online resources, such as bestbassgear.com, to see which pickups are available in this shape.

My biggest concern would be to find pickups which can handle the width of all 6 strings. An EMG40 (or Bartolini M4) on a 6-string is a bit of a tight fit. Make sure you measure your total string width across the centerline of each of your pickups, then check the "maximum string spacing" on the pickup specs to see if all the strings will be covered by the coil(s) within the pickups. The other thing to check is to make sure that the pickup is actually designed for 6 string basses, as some pickups are meant for 5-string basses and have a "split coil" arrangement inside that just wouldn't work on a 6-string.

I ran into a similar issue some years ago, when replacing the stock pickups in an Ibanez SR1206TK 6-string soundgear bass, which also came with pickups in the standard EMG40 size. I ended up choosing a pair of EMG pickups, which just fit the maximum string spacing. However, for various reasons I wasn't happy with the resulting tone. However there are a lot of folks who like the EMG sound.

The Q-tuners get consistently good reviews here on Talkbass, but if you look closely at the specs you'll see that the maximum string width for their EMG40-shape pickup (the BL-5 I think) is just too small for a 6-string. Probably because this pickup is meant for a 5-string bass with narrow string spacing.

I've been happy with various brands of pickups, including Lane Poor, Bartolini, Villex, and SGD. Each has their own "tone signature" and strengths. There unfortunately is no perfect pickup, but many of these can come close.

Best of luck!

 

[greenboy]

The only EMG-40-sized pickups to reach the outside strings fully on a 6-string 17mm string-spacing that I know of that really do well passively are the Link Removed:

I'm using a pair of these right now in such a bass (wide aperture bridge and narrow aperture neck, but soon to be wide aperture neck as well) and really dig 'em. I had a Q-Tuner in the neck position but the outside strings were not quite as responsive, and I didn't want to route to EMG-45 size. The SGD pickups got me tone that's really flexible and saved the trouble.

 

[David Jayne]

If I were you, I'd just try the existing pups passive first. You may be surprised.

 

[tubby.twins]

The bass has four knobs currently so I was thinking a volume and tone for each pickup might do it.

I've got one bass wired this way, and I've found that both tone knobs are always active all the time. I don't have any kind of switch after the Volume + Tone controls to select any of the pickups by itself, so I've found that the tone knobs are effectively duplicates of each other. This happens even when one of the pickup's Volume controls is turned all the way down - the Tone control for that pickup still affects the sound of the other pickup.

Unless you plan to have a two-channel pre-amp or buffer onboard, to buffer the two pickups (i.e. add their signals like a mixer) and prevent either tone control from affecting both pickups, I don't think having dual tone knobs would be useful to you. It's probably better to have a single passive tone control for a treble cut, and another for midrange cut.

For passive midrange cuts, you have several options. Stan Hinesley (formerly d.b.a. "HAS Sound") makes some nice midrange controls that come pre-wired and can be easily dropped in. I've used these in several all-passive basses, and they work very well. Villex also makes a passive "booster" which cuts certain frequencies while boosting others.

URL: http://www.stanhinesleypickups.com/passive_controls.htm
URL: http://www.villex.com/boosters.html

The SGD pickups got me tone that's really flexible and saved the trouble.

I completely agree. I really enjoy my SGD pickups, and the customer service is top-notch. I don't think you could go wrong with a pair of these.

 

[tubby.twins]

The only EMG-40-sized pickups to reach the outside strings fully on a 6-string 17mm string-spacing that I know of that really do well passively are the Link Removed:

Greenboy, I hate to nitpick, but wouldn't a 6-string with 17mm spacing have a total string width of 85mm at the bridge saddles? The SGD ND3-40 advertises a maximum string spacing of 79.375mm, and this might be a bit of a squeeze at the bridge position.

I don't have a 6-string any more, so I can't measure myself. Maybe the original poster can measure the total string width across the bridge pickup, between the centers of the low B and high C strings, and see if this pickup will work. I guess it depends on how close the bridge pickup is to the saddles...

 

[greenboy]

Yeah, actually the Hipshot type B is 16.5 mm or so, not 17 mm as it is listed. Anyway. Because of the nut width the spacing at a pickup is a little less yet the closer you get to the neck. But since the string also has wider excursion further from the bridge. So the width of the entire string set at the bridge pickup is probably the best place to measure.