What are good bass pickups for distortion?

[Axonic Rot]

I am in a unique position as a producer and engineer. I play in a duo with just a six string bass player and drums. I record and create the tones and pick the equipment. Me and Jim(the bassist in the band) were on the same page before we met. I love distorted bass and so does he. It seems to be some sort of uncharted ground to an extent. I have no idea what pickups to reach for. He is currently using the stock PUs that came in his bass(Douglas). I like the sound we've been getting and I'm hesitant to replace the PUs.

I want to hear from anyone who is knowledgeable about bass circuitry. I owned an SR-506 once and liked it, but I didn't have the equipment I do now to know how they would sound.

Here is the sound we have now for reference and to see what context we need the PUs in:


This video features both of our newest tones, both the clean one and the distortion. Both run two amp models at once, one being a clean sub sonic laden model. The distortion starts at 2:23:


The pickups that he has now are single coil J types. We are open to routing for soapbars. I've been looking at the q-tuners, but we can't drop that much on them. I've been looking t lace alumitones as well. I can't guess how the wide frequency response would work for this specific application. I'm currently leaning towards Bartolini.

Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge.

 

[darkstorm]

Ive used heavy overdrive and occassionaly distortion for bass most of my life as a player. Since the late 70's. Humbucker/soapbar pups outperform jazz and p pups overall in most cases with heavy overdrive or distortion in my experience. The next best choice being P type pups. Little less hifi detailed sound and perhaps a tad thicker sounding. I've only played two jazz pup equipted basses that did well with distortions and overdrives. Those being early 1980's Washburn ebt basses with stock pups. And teh Traben Array Attacks rockfield neck jazz pup.

For humbucker soapbar bass pups from aftermarket today, I'd go with emg wether passive or active, and their 3 band active eq with selectable mids. Or bartolini with 3 band eq as alternate. Some of the rockfield pups are available on aftermarket, but havent seen any of the bass pups available as such.