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Seymour Hot or Quarter Pounder Jazz?

which pickup?

  • Seymour Hot Jazz

    Votes: 13 44.8%

  • Seymour Quarter Pounder Jazz

    Votes: 16 55.2%
  • Total voters
    29
SwamiRob

SwamiRob

Aug 23, 2007
2,151
33
Scarborough, N. Yorks, England
#1
I don't usually do these kinda things, but I'm a little stuck. I play an ATK (with a bassculture pickup) in a loud heavy rock band with 2 guitars, and want a Jazz pickup to add a little more depth.

I already know the Quarter pounder sounds awesome, but it has (on paper) a pretty weak mid response, although alot of people I've heard use Quarters have a pretty mid range heavy tone.

So I looked at the other similar pickups and came across the Hot, which is more mid focused (on paper) but I have no experience with it at all.

Basically I have to cut through this: Link Removed

That was done with my stock pickup, and I setup my amp a little too bass heavy with my NV215 AND it got miced with an Audix D6. I think the guy who did all the engineering/mixing/producing was going for a dubish kinda effect, which is cool and I kinda like it but I want it a little more full range sounding next time we record with him.

I know I'm probably getting a fair amount of mids from my bridge humbucker, but I'm kinda stuck as to whether more would hurt, or whether I could use a Quarter pounder to balance the sound out a little. Obviously any other suggestions are welcome.
 
#6
Still not all too sure what I want yet. But does anyone know whether the Seymour pres are worthwhile? Kinda worried about mixing my pre amped ATK signal with a passive Jazz signal. Don't wanna run it through my ATKs pre, cos I have to do alot of Eqing to get the sound I like out of it.

Gonna be knobs everywhere! :(
 
#7
I've had both and I find the QP to be way scooped - I can't imagine cutting through the mix with these. The sound just like the tone chart with really big lows, no mids, and aggressive high end.

The Hots on the other hand have great mids and low mids w/o sounding honky, a big, tight low end, and a smooth, non-clanky high-end. I have the Hots in almost every passive bass I own.

JR
 
#8
JGR said:
I've had both and I find the QP to be way scooped - I can't imagine cutting through the mix with these. The sound just like the tone chart with really big lows, no mids, and aggressive high end.

The Hots on the other hand have great mids and low mids w/o sounding honky, a big, tight low end, and a smooth, non-clanky high-end. I have the Hots in almost every passive bass I own.

JR
Click to expand...

actually with my quarter pounder i cant get lost in the mix, my bass is always there, even with my guitarrist using a 100 tube amp and me just a 100 ampeg BA, altough he doesnt cranks his amp to max volume
 
#9
neither ... that seems like a wrong headed approach to the problem to me. If you're having to dink with the on board to get your sound - then you have work to do back at the amp... If the EQ options at the amp end are too limited - then add an EQ into the mix. I keep a Trace Elliot SM-7 around - along with a Bassbone and a BDDI just in case ... I do consider the Trace to be a magic box. It is hard to get a bad sound out of that thing ... sadly they are fairly rare. Someone really ought to try a comparison with the double sized programmable EQ from Boss ? Digitech ? I forget which. The audio quality of the TE box is just phenomenal - which was a total suprise to me when I first tried it...

Next time you record, use the mic - but also take a line direct and capture two tracks. In general you let the mic capture the 'bloom and boom' and use the DI to get the punch - that might be where your recorded mid punch comes from. As with all things recording - there are many guidelines and few hard 'n fast rules...
 
#10
I'm really happy with my bass tone at the moment to be honest, the reason I have to mess about with the on-board is cos the pickup sounds like it's had it's "tone" turned down an awful lot. So I have to do a bit of a bass cut and treble boost. To be honest I must have wired the thing a little weird, even though I'm pretty sure I followed the instructions alright, but can still get it to sound great.

My amps awesome too, really happy with it, I'm a huge Laney fan and there's plenty to play about with on it. I do like listening to Traces, but I don't like playing through them, can't really get my kinda tone out of it, but love listening to other people use them.

The only reason I want the Jazz, is cos I'm a huge Jazz bass fan, but I'm also a big Stingray fan, my 2 favourite basses. I prefer the feel and sound of my ATK over a Stingray with the new pickup, but obviously they have alot of similarities, but I just want a Jazz pickup to add to the sound a little.

I did use my DI in the studio too, next time I wanna use something much flatter however for a mic. JimmyM raved about a Heil PR40 or something like that, which is similar to an EV20 but half the price if not less, has a nice flat response though, and has nothing like the massive scoop the Audix D6 has.

Think I'm more tempted to go with the Hot now to be honest, listening to my bass as it is it has more then enough highs, and I'm not a big fan of big lows - although I am a fan of ultra deep tone, but I like it pretty tight.

Anyone know anything about this Seymour preamp by the way?
 
#11
I've had both, in the same bass. I think that people that are saying the Quarter pounders doesn't lack mids simply never played it side by side with another P-bass pickup, when you do that you clearly hear that it has heavy lows, harsh highs and very little mids, Even seymour duncan states that it's a mid-scooped pickup in their tone chart.

The hot, is the exact opposite of the Qp, it has plenty of mids, a reduced high end and the normal lows of a p-bass pickup.

If you tend to boost your mids when you play, then go for the hot, if you tend to scoop them you will like the Qp.

I like my bass tone to have plenty of mids, when I had the Qp, I ended up having an extreme frowny face Eq, cutting bass and treble and boosting the hell out of the mids to get my tone, it wasn't a good thing.

edit:

I re-read your post, my experience is with Precesion bass pickups but they are voiced in the same way.
 
#12
Yeah I like the sound of neck Jazzes soloed, but I'm not always so keen on the bridge one (although it works really well for some stuff), so it seems like an ideal setup for me.

I have a kinda flattish EQ, and I favour a fairly balanced sound, just without too many subby lows and a tight low midrange/high bass. I like it to sound aggressive, but I hate the nothing but mids approach to rock bass, I'm sure I can Q it to sound good enough. Thinking of goin with the pre and stacking my controls somehow, it's gonna get messy whatever happens.

Just noticed there's also a stacked hot as well as a single coil, probably better with it being humbucking, cos I'm gonna be using it without another Jazz pickup. But it has an even response according to the tone chart, anyone have anything to say about them?

They've put it down as 6/6/6 too which is weird, can't they just make 5 louder? :p
 
#15
I'm not using it on a Jazz man, I only want the 1 for the neck, and if it works for Metallica then it certainly doesn't work for me :p

j3b3r said:
I don't mean to take over the thread, but since we're talking about the hot and QP's, which one is more suited for slapping ??

:ninja:
Click to expand...

I'd assume the QP would be better cos of it's scooped EQ, couldn't say for sure.

By the way I quite like some Metallica really. Jason rocks, but I ain't in no metal band. Just really really heavy rock with some dischord style and UK style post-hardcore, a few stoner rock riffs and some hardcore and punk throw in for good measure ;)
 
#16
I ordered a set of Hot's to go in my project Jazz. I've only ever heard the pickups in my MIM Jazz in person, so it'll be an interesting A/B. I went with the Hot's solely because of the mid's on paper.
 
#20
I just need it for the 1 pickup, something I can use with a stacked tone+volume control would be cool. Would be nice if it matched the stingray kinda sound from the ATK. The less controls the better, don't really wanna cut into my bass more then I need to.

Can imagine the Jazz sounding a little weak compared to the ATK pickup if it's not running through a pre too, but I haven't had any experience with this kinda thing. If there was some way of routing it into my ATKs pre, but bypassing the EQ, that would be ideal, but I can't see how you'd do that.
 

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