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What would be your dream setup for pickups?

#21
bertbassplayer said:
Does that count as 1 or technically 5? Not sure.
Click to expand...

What about this one?
jtcfspsbpaan03wyzsag.jpg
 
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#25
Lots of things are nice. Myself, I've never seen any value to ANY pickup being within three (or so) inches of the bridge saddles... nothing any closer to the bridge than a Stingray pickup ever sounds useful to me.
 
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#29
Dingwall's 3X set-up with series parallel switching gives you the biggest, clearest P/bass sound (P-tone neck in series), a stingray sound (bridge and middle) with leaner and fatter variations depending on whether you have each in par. or series, and classic Jazz tones (bridge in parallel, neck in parallel, both). Very simple and intuitive to use. All pickup selection is handled by a 4 way rotary switch (no individual volume or blend pots), with a ser/par toggle for each pickup. From fully clockwise to clockwise, you get 1. Jazz w/ bridge soloed; 2. Stingray; 3. Jazz Neck & Bridge together and 4. Jazz neck (parallel) or P-bass (series). I use all settings over the course of a 4 hour gig. All my other basses seem limited now.

abi-3x-3-band-3x-toggles-vintage-white-wenge-wenge-e-jpg.jpg
 
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#31
ccfalkner said:
If you could design a custom bass with three pickups of any existing brands, what would it be? One requirement would be a combination of active and passive. Your answer should be in the format of:

What brand/model in each position and why, type of music you play. Bonus response would be what controls.
Click to expand...

After nearly 36 years of playing, I have tried many combinations of pickups in many configurations. The bass I currently have that sounds the most like I had always wanted a bass to sound has:

Nordstrand Big Split Alnico V in neck position, Nordstrand Big Split Alnico III in bridge position.
Ideal controls would be a master volume and a single balance/blend.
Sorry, but after many preamps and experimentation, I found I prefer the sound of passive basses.

I play hard rock/prog/metal. My tone gods have always been Geddy and Chris Squire.

Bonus: I am modifying a parts bass right now that has a P/J route, so I'm going to see if I can get the best of both worlds: A super-aggressive Nordie Alnico V P pickup (neck) and J single (bridge). THAT may turn out to be my favorite if it comes out sounding like I am envisioning. That bass has 4 controls - vol and tone per pickup.
 
#32
You ask what would be my dream setup for pickups, which would be a passive P/reverse J, maybe Quarterpounders, with VVT pots. But then you set a bunch of conditions so I can't have what I want. Whose dream is this?
 
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#33
For me, it would be a set of bartolini pickups along with an aguilar obp-3 preamp on my Ibanez soundgear bass. I plan to modify my Ibanez bass with those parts sometime soon. I was inspired by a few youtube clips to get those for my Ibanez bass. if for any reason I couldn't find a matching set of barts for my ibby, I would definitely go with either a set of aguilar super doubles or a set of nordstrands big splits. here are some some clips that inspired me to get those parts for my ibby.





Another dream pickup setup for a future bass I plan to buy would be a set of emg geezer pickups for if I buy a yamaha trbx174ew. I plan to get one for just in case my brother ever reforms his old band. but even if he didn't, I would still keep the bass. anywho, I plan to get a yamaha trbx174ew(or the regular 174) sometime soon. especially since I'm in the market for a passive bass. and if I want to swap the original pickups for a new set, I would definitely swap them for a set of emg geezer pickups.
 
#36
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Heres a 3 pickup bass I designed and built.
All bartolini cos I've had success with them in other stock basses of mine.
Bridge is the musicman pickup in the musicman position
Middle is a reverse split coil soapbar in the P position or close to.
Neck is a singularity. I had bought the other 2 used but wanted them specifically, was not sure what to put in the neck when a pair of these came up for a decent price

The idea was to have a either musicman tone, a p bass tone, and a mix of both through one output into my pedals and one amp and speaker. The singularity was to provide clean low end to another amp and speaker
Not sure how close I got with the MM sound (no mm preamp) but it sounds very good.

Controls - all passive. volume and tone for the mm/split next to the output Jacks.
Volume and tone for the singularity (dual outputs) on the upper horn
3 Lower horn switches. 1, capacitor toggle for singularity. 2, on off for split 3, on off for MM.
if I was to change something minor on this I would probably put a stacked vol vol knob for the MM and Split, also stacked tone knobs with one being a bass cut. But its busy enough in there as is.

I play rock and hard rock. But would be quite comfortable doing funk also.

Edit: I'd just like to say a big thanks to the US TBers who sold and shipped me used pickups etc which helped keep the cost of this thing down. A lot of guys will not ship intl which is their right. Buying used parts means I'm now playing this weekly rather than still building it
 
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#38
ccfalkner said:
If you could design a custom bass with three pickups of any existing brands, what would it be? One requirement would be a combination of active and passive. Your answer should be in the format of:

What brand/model in each position and why, type of music you play. Bonus response would be what controls.

For me personally, my goal would be to have the best range of quality tones I can mix with in one bass. I don't have enough experience to know the pros and cons of each position and what brands/types of pickups sound best for that position. So please fantasize away so I can learn from the best.

I am thinking my controls would be a control for each pickup, 4 band EQ and master volume. Can you think of a better setup?

As far as music I play, I am very eclectic and just like playing whatever the group decides at the moment.

I also highly prefer playing six strings, but hopefully some of the 4-5 string responses will convert over. I am thinking of building my own bass, and i would love to harvest some feedback to research and work with.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
2 J, 1 P reversed in the sweet spot. All Nordys. Passive volumes and tone. 9v 1 watt tube pre-amp with four band EQ and gain ran through an XLR output straight from the bottom of my bass (not likely, but that would be awesome). Reality, nothing but three mid controls if it had to be active (250hz 800hz 2500hz). But, I wouldn't build an active anything, or buy another one for that matter.
 
#39
I am about to pick up family from the airport and enjoy the holidays, but to expand on the experience question, I have been playing for 7 years with only one bass, an sr706, and love that, but I have the desire of building a second bass and have all the wood tools. I also know it was built with medium grade components. The new one would be used to have some new tones, and if I did a good enough job, become my number one. (kind of thinking of toy story at the moment) my lack of experience is more of not playing with other bases and had the idea of since I was starting from scratch, I could get more variety. Floating it with TB is getting the information I wanted before I started. Also to keep me from wasting time and money if I am headed in the wrong direction. I would like the option of passive tones, but do also like my current bass.

Thanks for all your comments and please keep them coming
 
#40
ccfalkner said:
I am about to pick up family from the airport and enjoy the holidays, but to expand on the experience question, I have been playing for 7 years with only one bass, an sr706, and love that, but I have the desire of building a second bass and have all the wood tools. I also know it was built with medium grade components. The new one would be used to have some new tones, and if I did a good enough job, become my number one. (kind of thinking of toy story at the moment) my lack of experience is more of not playing with other bases and had the idea of since I was starting from scratch, I could get more variety. Floating it with TB is getting the information I wanted before I started. Also to keep me from wasting time and money if I am headed in the wrong direction. I would like the option of passive tones, but do also like my current bass.

Thanks for all your comments and please keep them coming
Click to expand...
You can really only have 1 passive tone control with standard parallel wired basses. You can also have a bass cut control but in most cases a bass cut isn't useful on a bass. With a series wired bass you can have individual tone controls but it gets really muddy really fast, even with 3 single coils. If you want active and passive controls with 3 pickups, I would recommend a switch based selector (either a strat switch or toggles) into a passive volume and tone into the preamp. When you start building make sure to make a build thread on the luthiers corner.
 
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