Swapping out pickups on active bass... how difficult for D.I.Y.'ers??

[Smooth_bass88]

I want to swap the stock pickups in my Lakland 5501 with some Nordstrands. I'm thinking about doing it myself but I've never performed this operation on a bass with on board EQ. I've swapped pickups on passive Fenders many times. My question is... how tough a task is this for someone who's not done this before? Anyone with little experience do this? Maybe someone could post a link to a good video or perhaps a couple threads on this specific question (yes I've searched but with very few good results). Thanks in advance.

 

[tonym]

Very easy to do. I've done it twice myself with no prior experience. If you have any questions regarding the wiring once you have everything opened up. Just contact Nordstrand, they're very helpful.

 

[Smooth_bass88]

Very easy to do. I've done it twice myself with no prior experience. If you have any questions regarding the wiring once you have everything opened up. Just contact Nordstrand, they're very helpful.

Cool. Thanks

 

[JTE]

It's really no different from a passive bass. The PUPs on the 55-01 are passive. So just like swapping a passive Fender, all you're doing is unsoldering the hot and ground PUP leads and soldering the new ones in the same place.

 

[Geri O]

The main thing is to have yer basic soldering skills. If you can solder properly, changing pickups is quite easy. All the pups I’ve exchanged came with explicit easy-to-follow writing diagrams that were fine for active or passive basses.