What the heck, I'm going to resurrect this dead thread. I love the sound of SX jazz pups! They sound really good with Sadowsky or Chromes flatwounds. I would never replace them.
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SX J Bass Pickups - Opinions
- Thread starter Ryan Mohr
- Start date
Yeah, I'm quite new to this bass thing so my ears aren't fully trained to be able to hear all the nuances between different jazz basses.. but I can see why the overall consensus is that SX's pickups are good.
I own a SJB-75 and I really like the way it sounds. The pickups are pretty hot. Boost the mids @650Hz, solo the bridge pickup, roll off the tone and man, the thing barks! Lots of growl.
To me, it sounds like a "real" jazz bass, way different than my Precision, and that's why I like it.
I own a SJB-75 and I really like the way it sounds. The pickups are pretty hot. Boost the mids @650Hz, solo the bridge pickup, roll off the tone and man, the thing barks! Lots of growl.
To me, it sounds like a "real" jazz bass, way different than my Precision, and that's why I like it.
Sounds like a more mid heavy jazz bass to me, not sure if it's because the pickups are overwound. Plenty of output and I think it lends itself well to the jazz style sound.
tylerwylie said:
I just get a nice round growly tone with flats and have no need to change them out. I just need to shield and ground the pups and I'll be good to go.
- Feb 8, 2005
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For even more bark, I got an SX Jazz with the pups wired in series. With flats and played with a pick, it's very in-your-face...I dig it a lot.
I shielded mine with copper foil (or bronze, IDK) and yeah... what an improvement!! It's so worth it.
The only things I'd like to do to mine are for aesthetic reasons:
- Black tuners (Wilkinson's are too big, and Rondo doesn't ship theirs to my country)
- Cream pickup covers (But I've read that you can't remove SX's pickup covers)
- And a Badass II bridge, but they're expensive and I don't wanna mess with the action.
Anyway.. sorry for the off-topic.
cheers.
I shielded mine with copper foil (or bronze, IDK) and yeah... what an improvement!! It's so worth it.
The only things I'd like to do to mine are for aesthetic reasons:
- Black tuners (Wilkinson's are too big, and Rondo doesn't ship theirs to my country)
- Cream pickup covers (But I've read that you can't remove SX's pickup covers)
- And a Badass II bridge, but they're expensive and I don't wanna mess with the action.
Anyway.. sorry for the off-topic.
cheers.
The pickup covers actually come off pretty easily.
Yup. The pickups on all my SX 5ers are just great. But I always mod mine with some way to switch between series and parallel. Typical mod is a rotary switch = mute, neck only, both series, both parallel, bridge only.
As far as I'm concerned the ONLY reason to switch SX 5er pickups is because of single coil hum when soloed bridge or neck. I've considered that, but haven't decided yet what to switch to. I love Nordies but $$$! And since the 5er SX pups are hot, single coil noise isn't too bad!
But let me add that the above is NOT true for the SX 6 string jazz pickups. They are weak and anemic and hum like mad. I'm NOT happy at all with them. Not sure what to use as a replacement there yet either.
Did you have to do any cutting or filing to get the replacement pickups to fit, or did they slide right in?
Mine sound great. Has been impressive with flats. My guitarist was digging this bass alot when i brought it over last night for the first time.
With SX basses it's hit or miss. Some come out the box sounding good, some need a little tweaking and some need to be modded. There's also some subjectivity that comes into play as well. Some people just look for a certain sound and don't get it without modding the SX. Bur for the price I say they are pretty good.
If I recall(it's been a while since I had that bass.Some $#&**@ stole it) it was a fairly easy job.Had a little trouble putting a tortise pickguard on it though.It was Lake Placid blue with an old style SX headstock.With the pickguard it looked really expensive.The Dimarzio ultra's went in easy but I had to take some of the bottom of the pickup route foam off as the Dimarzio's were deeper.
I haven't tried mine with flats yet, but after tweaking the height of the pickups, mine sounds great and is quickly becoming my main player. My drummer liked it so much he ordered one for himself!!
I have the stock pickups still in my $89 SX black jazz with bad homeade tort pickguard. I replaced them once with a set of highly regarded set of Duncan jazz pickups, the stocks pickups had more bite & focus & were soon re-installed. The bass was so cheap & really doesn't need any upgrades other than aesthetic, I feel like I stole it. Other basses have come & gone but this one isn't going anywhere.
The only thing I didn't like about SX pickups were the polepieces sticking way out of the cover. They sound great, though. I don't have my two SX's anymore but the pickups were the best thing about them.
Being these basses are so inexpensive I would guess pickups may be kind of inconsistant.
FWIW I thought the pickups in mine were good but I had a set of Fralin's laying around and once I put them in I realized the originals weren't as good as I thought. Had a problem with the Fralins and had to send them in to get repaired. Put the originals back in for a few gigs which made me sad.... so I ordered some Lollars and have been happy ever since....
FWIW I thought the pickups in mine were good but I had a set of Fralin's laying around and once I put them in I realized the originals weren't as good as I thought. Had a problem with the Fralins and had to send them in to get repaired. Put the originals back in for a few gigs which made me sad.... so I ordered some Lollars and have been happy ever since....
