An interesting alternative pickup:
I decided to re-wire my custom EB0 recently. The original build was based on an EB0 body that I picked up here in the Classifieds a few years ago. The prior owner had routed it for another mudbucker-sized pickup, near where a Precision pickup would be. Not as close to the bridge as the bridge pickup of an EB3. I put a TV Jones Thunder'Mag in that spot, and wired it through a John East BTB-01 two-band circuit, using the original pickup cavity by the neck as a battery holder. Looked like this:
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I really really like the TV Jones pickup, but I was feeling a bit limited by only having the one pickup in this bass. Being a complete addict to the Classifieds here, I had also recently picked up a factory Gibson SG neck pickup - the TB+ version, that isn't a sidewinder/mudbucker at all, but is a traditional dual-coil with fake pole pieces running down the center. I had also become enamored with the work of
Jerry Sentell, and was particularly taken with his "Unmudbucker" replacement pickup for EB basses. So I bought one of those as well.
With two DiMarzio Model One pickups also in my collection, I found myself in the position of having too many pickups for just the one bass.
I finally decided to put the Sentell Unmudbucker at the neck, and the Gibson TB+ in the not-really-bridge position. Having a limited number of control holes and a very small cavity, I also decided to remove the BTB-01 and go passive, with just a volume control and a three-way pickup selector switch.
The Unmudbucker is an interesting pickup, for several reasons. It's a sidewinder design (as are many of Sentell's offerings), but it uses Alnico rod magnets as pole pieces, as popularized by Fender. It's also only wound to 14 kOhm, as opposed to the 30 kOhm of the stock Gibson unit (and also I assume the stock Epi unit). Finally, he mounts the pickup in a clear plexiglass cover, so the original chrome cover can't be used. A very interesting look!
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And for those of you who might not have seen one of the Gibson TB+ pickups, here's what that pickup looks like under the cover:
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Here's the finished setup:
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I got a chance to spend a half hour this afternoon to plug it into my gig rig (a new vertical 4x10 and one of several Class D amps; today it was a TC BH250). First thing I discovered was that the pickups were out of phase with each other. This can happen when mixing pickups from different manufacturers; there's about a 50/50 chance of them being in phase, and I got unlucky this time. It's an easy fix, though - just swap the leads on one of the pickups. Since the Gibson uses a single-conductor with a braided shield, the obvious candidate was the Sentell. A quick wire swap (the soldering iron was already hot) and another test verified that I now had full volume in the center switch position.
My house wiring is very noisy, a problem which the Gibson pickup scoffs at, having substantial amounts of grounded metal in its construction. The Sentell, not so much. Buzz city. And with the plexiglass cover, there's no obvious way to try and shield the thing. I'll test it out in a few different venues; if it's only my house, then I'll leave it, but if it happens elsewhere, I may need to look into shielding the cavity, which means I'll need to find some black shielding paint somewhere, as my work will be visible through the plexiglass....
Another easily solved issue was the pole piece height on the Sentell. The rod magnets are not obviously adjustable, so I emailed Mr. Sentell and asked how I could lower them. He replied very quickly, and said that they are just a press fit, not glued in, so some careful pressure from a shop vise and they were handily set at the right height.
How do they sound?
First, the Sentell - even placed right up against the fingerboard, the Sentell has lots of high-end clarity. I suspect it's due to the narrow aperture that's inherent in the sidewinder design, coupled with the not-ridiculous amount of wiring, coupled with the Alnico rods.
The Sentell actually has more upper-end clarity than the Gibson does, even with their respective positions along the string length. The Gibson by itself is very midrangey. A good sound for certain styles; punk perhaps, but not for everything. Definitely not a candidate for a single-pickup bass. But when combined with the Sentell the end result has lots of pillowy girth down low, that classic slightly-scooped midrange when two pickups are combined, and the crispness of the Sentell. Very usable. And the Sentell soloed has (as expected) a cool early-60s pluck to it, but again, with more clarity than is usual here.
I'll reserve my final judgment until I'm able to rehearse and/or gig with it, but I'm satisfied for now that this will be workable. I do wonder, though, how it might work with these two pickups in the opposite locations.
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