Which J pickup hum cancels with MM pickup.

darwin-bass

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Mar 29, 2013
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If thinking about adding a single coil J pickup to the neck position on my 'Ray. I prefer it to hum cancel with my MM pickup when I run just the F or R coil in the MM to mimic a traditional J arrangement.

Which coil in my SD MM pickup will hum cancel with a neck J pickup? Which will cancel with a bridge J pickup?

I'm assuming the SD MM pickup has a FWFP front coil and a RWRP rear coil. Any way to test this?
 
The rays that were made in the H-S configuratin had a dummy coil under the pickguard.

Now, hum-canceling J pickups are available from many brands.

Delano, Nordstrand, SD, etc. offer pickups that are coil selectable and if I were doing what you are, I'd figure out the wiring with the help of the pickup vendor of my choice.

For example, you can get all the help you need, if you pick up the phone and explain your requirements. I had all my questions answered by C. Novak, in detail: pup positioning, pot values, installation (wiring).

You could also post a link to you thread to the StingRay club, to get more exposure to your project.
 
I just picked up some pups from Fat Bass Tone, a Delano MC 4 FE/M2, it's a "Music Man" replacement pup. Now it's two single coils are both split into two coils each, making it a quad coil pup. And I also picked up a Delano JMVC 4 FE/M2 Jazz neck pickup, which is also a split coil/hum cancelling pup as well.

On the JMVC 4 FE/M2 Jazz pup they normally only sell the set, or a single bridge, there is no option for a single Jazz neck, but I contacted FBT, told them what I was up to with a custom build and what I was wanting to do, and they split up a set and sold me the Jazz neck pup.

I would definitely contact them and tell them what you got going on, what you are doing, or wanting to do. They will be more than happy to help and have plenty of pickup and preamp wiring diagrams to grab on their website as well.

They sell the following brands...

Aguilar, Bartolini, Delano, DiMarzio, EMG, Kloppmann, LeCompte, Fralin, Lollar, Nordstrand, Sadowsky, and Seymour Duncan.

Fat Bass Tone is owned and operated by Brian Ristola, and Max Kay. Both are well qualified bass guys. Their accomplishments are impressive. You can read about them here.

Give 'em a shout.
 
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On the JMVC 4 FE/M2 Jazz pup they normally only sell the set, or a single bridge, there is no option for a single Jazz neck, but I contacted FBT, told them what I was up to with a custom build and what I was wanting to do, and they split up a set and sold me the Jazz neck pup.
I picked up a Delano JMVC 4 FE/M2 neck pickup on it's own through Best Bass Gear earlier this year. Checking again, they're currently out of stock, but, if their website is to be believed, they may have individuals again sometime.

@darwin-bass; I'm thinking about parting out my J/MM bass to help pay for something I'm GASsing for. I got the Delano pups so they'd have a nice visual match to go with the great reviews I've heard about them. If you think you'd want mine, shoot me a PM. (For the record, very beefy pup. Delano does not "play around", so to speak.)
 
I picked up a Delano JMVC 4 FE/M2 neck pickup on it's own through Best Bass Gear earlier this year. Checking again, they're currently out of stock, but, if their website is to be believed, they may have individuals again sometime.
Funny you should mention Best Bass Gear. Brian Ristola founded BBG, left in 2010, and eventually started Fat Bass Tone.

I noticed several things at BBG "will be in stock soon", I was also looking at Haussel.

Went to Fat Bass Tone instead and they of course have Delano stuff in stock.
 
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I did some measuring. The MM pickup position does not line up with the traditional J pickup location so my idea that a neck J plus one coil of the MM would sound like a Jazz bass is not correct.

Which is fabulous!

I just saved myself a couple hundred dollars and avoided the task of modifying my bass.
 
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I did some measuring. The MM pickup position does not line up with the traditional J pickup location so my idea that a neck J plus one coil of the MM would sound like a Jazz bass is not correct.

Which is fabulous!

I just saved myself a couple hundred dollars and avoided the task of modifying my bass.
Yeah, the rear coil of a MM pickup is about 31" from the nut. The usual Jazz bridge pickup can be anywhere from about 31 3/8" (60s) to around 31 3/4" (70s). Using the rear coil and putting the J neck pickup at the usual spot (27 3/4" from the nut) would still result in a decent J simulation. It would still scoop and bite when the pickups are blended.
Use this to get closer, and have the proper coil configuration for MM and J modes...
DELANO THE HYBRID 4
FWIW, I have a Peavey Foundation with Super Ferrites, located pretty much in the J spots. I also have a Peavey Patriot, with the same pickups, located in the Ric spots. The pickup locations leapfrog each other, so much so they could all be installed on one bass and not overlap. When using either bass with both pickups selected, they get a similar scoop, it's just that the Patriot has a deeper fundamental to it, due to the pickups being closer to the neck.
Point is, having just the bridge pickup about 3/8" of an inch off will not be radically different sounding. Yes, the phase scoop will be slightly different, yes, using half of a MM pickup vs a proper J pickup will sound different. The use of half of a MM pickup will make the J emulation less accurate vs the effect of the location of the coil. The catch is that the MM pickup is lower output and designed to use the preamp for volume. J pickups stand on their own.