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Soapbar question

SnoMan

SnoMan

Words Words Words
Jan 27, 2001
3,234
145
42
Charleston, WV
#1
Sorry if this has been asked 10,000 times before, but I couldn't get any answers that I was looking for in my searches.

Bassically what I'm looking for is this, how does a soapbar pick-up's tone compare to J's and P's.

I've read quite a few posts about soapbars just covering normal J's or P's, but that just seems odd to me.

Yeah, i'm just a young guy(21) who hates the normal look of standard P basses with a passion and wants something different, but isn't that the fun of being young?

And too continue with the top disclaimer, sorry if this has been run through the wash already, but I couldn't find anything that satisfied my thoughts in looking through quite a number of previouis posts through search.
 
#2
Soapbar refers to a shape only, it has nothing to do with the coil configuration. J is a shape also, under the pickup cover you could have a single coil J, stacked coil humbucking J, split coil humbucking J ...

So you could have two soapbar pickups, which under the covers both have a single coil J pickup. Tonally it would sound most like a jazz bass if the coils were placed in the usual J positions. Or other variations.

EMG make lots of different soapbars with dual coils, split coils (P), single coils etc.

Does that help?
 
#3
Yes it does. This tells me I have a lot to learn in the world of pick-ups....gotta hang around this forum more instead of the amps section....

So what you're saying is, when I'm looking at the soapbar pickup, I'm not really looking at the pickup. I'm looking at a mere illusion of the pick-up and seeing only what the manufacturer wants me to see. And this is just a grand illusion put forth to fool us into falling for trends that push us away from what is known to be good and true and make us wish to rebel. But whilst we try to rebel from the good goodness of the standard set forth by the mighty P, the benevolent J or the ever worthy single and double coils(yeah, the coils are in the P/J's but I"m not finished rambling), we find ourselves finding the same ingredients within the soapbar, just being masquaraded around in a different suit. :hiding:

:D

I think/hope I understand better now....I have better grounding for doing some more research now, thanks

and thanks for enduring that :hyper:
 

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