What is the Sire Z7 neck pickup based on?

[Bassaga]

Bridge pickup is obviously their version of a MM pickup. But all the MM basses I see have either an H or an HH arrangement, no HS pairings. I've checked out some tone demos, and the Z7's single coil in the neck sounds murderous (though apparently unbalanced with the humbucker). I'm not sure I need a Z7, but if I could e.g. get a jazz bass with the Z7 neck pickup, I'd be real into that.

So I thought I'd check if that pickup is supposed to be based on anything in particular that I can find elsewhere. Or did they just make something up and stick it on their Z3 to make a new model?

 

[FretRiff]

Sire says they design their own pickups, using “Fiber Bobbin, Alnico 5 magnets, and USA coil magnet wires”.

(They don’t say they manufacture them, and the word “design” can often mean slight adjustments to stock products available from sources.)

Lindy Fralin’s ’51 P-Bass and Split ’51 P-Bass and J pickups also use hand-built fiberboard bobbins, USA-made Alnico 5 magnets, and USA-made magnet wire.

Just a coincidence? As far as I can tell they aren’t (or haven’t acknowledged being) an OEM supplier to any guitar company.

 

[TN WOODMAN]

I can vouch for Lindy’s split ‘51. It’s just what was needed in my Warmouth ‘56 p bass build. Love it with GHS pressure wounds.

 

[JakobT]

Bridge pickup is obviously their version of a MM pickup. But all the MM basses I see have either an H or an HH arrangement, no HS pairings. I've checked out some tone demos, and the Z7's single coil in the neck sounds murderous (though apparently unbalanced with the humbucker). I'm not sure I need a Z7, but if I could e.g. get a jazz bass with the Z7 neck pickup, I'd be real into that.

So I thought I'd check if that pickup is supposed to be based on anything in particular that I can find elsewhere. Or did they just make something up and stick it on their Z3 to make a new model?

Musicman did make a StingRay HS at one time. But as the video shows, this pickup has the same large pole pieces as the humbucker, so obviously Sire did not base the neck pickup on the Z7 on that. It looks like a straight jazz-type neck pickup to me.

 

[kodiakblair]

@Bassaga

The Lakland 55 paired a neck single coil with a bridge MM. Peavey's take on the 55, the Millennium, did the same.

 

[Brandon Shea]

@Bassaga

The Lakland 55 paired a neck single coil with a bridge MM. Peavey's take on the 55, the Millennium, did the same.

Beat me to it! The five string Z7 reminds me a lot of a Lakland bass, at least at a quick glance.

 

[JakobT]

@Bassaga

The Lakland 55 paired a neck single coil with a bridge MM. Peavey's take on the 55, the Millennium, did the same.

Sandberg also pairs a bridge MM with a single coil neck pickup on several of their California II models, with the same type of pole pieces as on the humbucker.

 

[SunByrne]

I have a Z7. I'll quote from my NBD thread when I got it:

There's no hum at all from the J pickup. Sire says it's a "Premium J" pickup (which Sire lists only for the high-end V10dx) and Sweetwater lists it as "split jazz single coil." I'm half-tempted to pull it out and take a look, but based on the lack of hum and the sound, I do wonder if it's some kind of split-coil in a single-coil housing like the Nordstrand hum-cancelling J.

I have since gotten another bass (Ibanez SRD900F) that has the Nordstrand Big Break pickups (the OEM version of the Big Split) which is a split-coil in a single-coil kind of housing. There is more than a passing family resemblance between them, so I now even more strongly suspect that's what's in the Z7, but I have been too lazy to actually pull out the pickup and look at it.

 

[OldShark]

But as the video shows, this pickup has the same large pole pieces as the humbucker, so obviously Sire did not base the neck pickup on the Z7 on that.

FWIW, the newer 2025er Z7 in Skyburst Sparkle is shown with a neck PU with large pole pieces, and according to other threads, it's expected that newer Z7s generally will get that newer PU in a few months.

Sire Marcus Miller Z7 4-String

Blending Classic Elegance with Modern Performance The higher-tier variant in the new Z series, Sire Z7 is made for players looking for groovy humbucker sound. It features an Edgeless™ neck with the most requested stainless steel frets to match different preferences while keeping up with comfort...

www.sire-usa.com

I guess a lot of reviews mentioned that the original Z7 neck PU does sound good on its own, but is somewhat quieter than the bridge humbucker.

 

[SunByrne]

FWIW, the newer 2025er Z7 in Skyburst Sparkle is shown with a neck PU with large pole pieces, and according to other threads, it's expected that newer Z7s generally will get that newer PU in a few months.

Interesting, I hadn't seen that. I wonder how different that'll be.

 

[doctone]

I would bet that both the traditional double and big single polepiece versions are made by either Artec (Partsland) or Roswell. Both are from Korea and have such PUs in their catalogues.
I play a Roswell QPA on my Sonic P and like it very much.

 

[OldShark]

Or did they just make something up and stick it on their Z3 to make a new model?

Both the Z3 and Z7 have been announced at NAMM 2024 and are available since around autumn 2024, so the Z7 has been positioned as a premium model right from the start, with additional neck PU, better hardware, more expensive wood, preamp with passive tone and mid-frequency control... (That being said, AFAIK, the Z3 is often reviewed as the more "fitting MM counterpart"...)

 

[SunByrne]

Yep, the Z7 and Z3 were announced and released at the same time, so the Z7 is just a mod to a previously-existing model.

I wanted an HS StingRay for a while but they're not easy to find and kind of expensive on the used market, so when Sire announced them at NAMM 2024 for that price I ordered my Z7 as soon as Sweetwater was taking orders (January). I received it early September, so a bit of a wait—the speculation is that this was due to the kerfuffle over the headstock shape, which was first announced as the 3+1 but shipped as a standard 4. I got the natural finish (more expensive) because I wanted the roasted maple neck. The neck is indeed excellent, so that was money well-spent.