• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Why the common hate for MEC Pickups & preamps here?

#21
MEC active pickups and passive are very different. I have owned 3 different Jazzman from 2 different eras. I’m not 100% sure what year the changeover was but the first few years the stock preamp was a Seymour Duncan 3 band (STC-3P) with a push pull mid pot that would scoop the tone by lowering the mids and boosting the low and high frequencies. This feature was pretty useless but that preamp has a lower EQ point on the treble and less +- decibels in gain and cut I think sounding much more natural and less noisy. Later they used the MEC 3 band preamp but I always thought the Duncan was a better match. Those pickups were one of the few set ups that are passive that’s one of the reasons I loved them so much. I actually found the open pole pieces in the MEC MM pickup to have such a strong magnetic pull I had to adjust it lower than I would have liked. You slam that B into one of those open pole pieces at a high volume you can blast out a tweeter fast I know I had done it a few times.

MEC active pickups are super open and bright even more so than EMG and less bottom overall from my experience and I have owned 3 BO Thumbs, 3 NT Thumbs, 3 Jazzman, 4 Corvettes one was a redwood burl limited edition, 2 Streamers on a stage 1 and a few others and my keeper best bass I ever played my Streamer Stage 2 that I actually installed EMG J’s and a Seymour Duncan (STC-3A) and a few others as well and all 100% German and all 5 strings with one or two fretless in there.

They all sounded so different to me but sure they had the signature growl and woody tone but all so different. I know there are members who have maybe owned more than I but I have had a few and some had necks so thin and fast I didn t like it at all or thick and all had different qualities so when someone says Warwicks are blah blah blah or MEC electronics and pickups are blah blah blah…they are speaking most times in a very limited experience. Judge each bass on its own merit. If it makes any difference my favorite set up from them is the Jazzman it’s so versatile and usable. They all were very revealing and not sure which elements of them made them so but you hear everything on a Warwick good or bad playing and I think that’s what most don’t like and the tight spacing of the 5 and 6 stringers. As a side note the NT Thumb is amazing but as mentioned here the design team has a huge fail there for balance 100% true.

Here a few I have owned below..
 

Attachments

  • wics4.jpg
    wics4.jpg
    582 KB · Views: 656
#22
I have stock MEC pickups and preamp on my Thumb.
I keep thinking about changing the preamp to an Aguilar.
But then I read tons of reviews by other Thumb owners the consensus (averaging out opinions) is:
Not a huge difference, MECs sound good, maybe the Aguilar pres are a tad warmer... idk.

I love the sound of my Thumb, bright and punchy, turn up the bass knob and it never gets muddy.
For the type of sound I'm after, they work great.

Of course, I'm always willing to try something new.

The only consistent complaint I've ever read about with MEC pre amps are that they are too bright.
But that's usually by those that like passive preamps it seems.
And, that is what the treble control is for anyway, so...
 
#24
No hate here. Never owned em... Played a few Warwicks and thought they were pretty decent basses, but the specific models I was able to demo were way out of my price range so that kind of killed that... Their low end basses start where a lot of companies mid range instruments live price wise... Like I said, really nice instrument, but if I spent $4k on a new bass without the OK from SWMBO I will need more $$ for a lawyer...
 
#25
I had 2 Warwick LX5s with active MECs from the 90s and both sounded great (well one was a Bolt-On and one was an LX) with dual active Js and a 2 band EQ I tended to leave flat. I currently have an FNA 5er that I don't like as much so I rarely play it (it was the backup bass to my Squier P5 at my last gig).
 
#26
Big difference between pickup and preamps. Why do people throw them into the same basket.

The preamps are fine and work just like everybody else's preamps that a linear in the middle.

The pickups are garbage. At the very least they would need a preamp that is NOT linear by default but gives them a bit more of a resonance peak.
 
#27
So a question for you guys that have made some switches in preamps and pickups....
Have any of you switched on a double buck and was it challenging?
I have a double buck streamer that I love, but find without a mid knob I'm always fighting the 250hz range. Id like to remedy this. I don't want a preamp with stacked knobs because I have one of the Rusty basses and switching knobs would ruin the aesthetics.

When I've opened the cavity it SEEMS like switching out anything would be a real pain because so much looks to be soldered to multi pinned switches with like 10 leads. Or am I looking at the wrong connections?

Any recommendations? Should I switch the pre, or the pup to have a more even mids tone?
 
#28
I have worked on a few Warwick basses with electronic issues. Mainly with fairly recent models; late nineties, thru my own personal Stage I 6 Ibrecently picked up. All had preamp issues. One in particular that I have run into a lot. The pickups? Have output too friggin hot fer the inputs of the preamp. I've talked to Warwick's custom shop on numerous occasions, mention the issue, because the owners of the instruments wished to keep the instrument original. Warwick does not like to hear that this issue exists. But? On at least three of the basses it most certainly does. I put a comple Bart system in a fretless Thumb because of it. It was a vast improvement. I put in a complete Duncan Basslines system in a fretless Streamer LX. Not as successful as the Thumb, but far improved over the stock pickups. In my Stage I? I liked the sound of the soapbars "passive", the pickups are active themselves, so I opted for a Noll two band pre, cuz it was available to me, I wanted to play the bass, I prefer a two band preamp's low end control cuz it's "wider", an Wicks have PLENTY of mids. I felt the Noll would handle the pickups output level, and I was right. The MEC electronics DO impart much of Warwick's signature tone. The MEC preamps, when workin right, sound great an work fine. But? This Noll let me hear the pickups as they are, an it is really killin at the moment. I now have a passive tone to rein in some of the inherent brightness of the MEC pickups. That? Is key. It's awesome. Also? Now the front pickup is clear as a bell, and among my favorite tones I've gotten out of ANY Warwick I have played. Which includes all those I played and setup and serviced when workin at a dealership in the late eighties an early nineties. All the other electronics companies that supplied Warwick in their heyday? Sounded and performed better than the stock MECs Warwick switched to, in my opinion. The MEC pickups are pretty great across the board, tho output levels change drastically across the line. The preamps? I may love em. If they worked consistently. Some? Are fantastic. Some? Just ain't right.
 
#29
EZA said:
what were you playing before the 63 P?
Click to expand...
I had never touched a bass guitar: I was 16 & had been playing guitar since about nine, more seriously since about age 11. My friend was saxophonist in our school Jazz band, and said He could let me use his cousin's Fender bass to audition for Jazz band. I literally met up with him, walking toward the band room one morning, and he handed me this beat-up '63 sunburst P bass without a case and undoubtedly the same flatwounds it was issued with in 1963 (at that point, 17 years old). I grabbed the bass, walked into the band room, and got the gig. If that wasn't a "lightning strikes" moment, I don't know what could be...had been playing guitar for years, and the second I felt this thing, it was like:
"YEAH, THIS IS HOME."

He just let me keep the bass, and my band instructor was a huge YES fan, and we'd talk about Chris Squire, who became my first big influence. What a lucky series of events all that was. The band instructor (still a friend, and now I'm a music teacher), never bothered me about reading music, and just let me make up my own bass lines. That free'63 and this instructor changed my life.
 
  • Like
Reactions: stevensivak and joshstamell
#30
eyeballkid said:
So a question for you guys that have made some switches in preamps and pickups....
Have any of you switched on a double buck and was it challenging?
I have a double buck streamer that I love, but find without a mid knob I'm always fighting the 250hz range. Id like to remedy this. I don't want a preamp with stacked knobs because I have one of the Rusty basses and switching knobs would ruin the aesthetics.

When I've opened the cavity it SEEMS like switching out anything would be a real pain because so much looks to be soldered to multi pinned switches with like 10 leads. Or am I looking at the wrong connections?

Any recommendations? Should I switch the pre, or the pup to have a more even mids tone?
Click to expand...

I'm guessing you have a hard time removing that 250hz?
Have you tried lowering your pickups? Or EQing your amp differently?

I replaced my double buck corvette with 2 different pickups. I have a Bart Quad coil and Delano Quad coil now.
I also upgraded my pre to an Audere module pro Z.

I had my tech install the pre since there is so many wires.
The 2 pickups I installed myself. It was pretty simple.

In the picture, there is three (3 position switches)
Top switch: pro Z (low Z/mid Z/hi Z)
Middle switch: neck Bart (parallel/single coil/series)
Bottom switch: bridge Delano (parallel/single coil/series)
TRqleQZ.jpg
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: GypsyBilly and dkelley
#31
I always lower my pickups first. I find alot of guys raise them for a "thick" sound that doesnt really work IME. I do cut that range on EQ on the amps that I , but some amps I have dont allow for precise cutting and the time I remove enough of that range it also removed alot of low mids in general and it makes the bass sound thin.
 
#32
eyeballkid said:
I always lower my pickups first. I find alot of guys raise them for a "thick" sound that doesnt really work IME. I do cut that range on EQ on the amps that I , but some amps I have dont allow for precise cutting and the time I remove enough of that range it also removed alot of low mids in general and it makes the bass sound thin.
Click to expand...

The Audere pre can help but you would have to let go of those knobs or drill 2 holes in your bass for a hi mid and low mid and buy 2 extra warwick knobs.

Audere Classic 4 Band
Bass shelving - dB 180hz +/- 16 dB
1st Mid Peak - dB 250hz +/- 10 dB
2nd Mid Peak - dB 750hz +/- 10 dB
Treble shelving - dB 3.2Khz +/- 18 dB

Another option can be Aguilar OBP-3. You would still have to drill 1 hole for mid pot, but that mid pot will be a push/pull to change mid frequency.

Bass: +/- 18 dB @ 40 Hz.
Mid: +/- 16 dB @ 400Hz or 800 Hz. User selectable frequency center.
Treble: +/- 16 dB @ 6.5 KHz.
 
#33
Those EQ values aren't really useful since they don't give the width of the mid peaks and for the bass and treble they don't say whether that is a shelf EQ or a regular LPF/HPF.

That's one reason why I am so grumpy about much bass gear. They just don't tell you what you get.
 
#34
I believe the dislike may lie with inconsistency of the stock mecs.
I have a 2000 corvette standard fretless with passive pickups and it has a fantastic sound. I have a 2001 corvette fretted with mecs and the active preamp, the sound is not nearly as nice as the fretless even when it is in passive mode it still does not have the same growl.
I have been contemplating switching the pick ups or the preamp but do not know which way to go. I know agular gets a lot of love on tb but has anyone had success keeping the growl with just switching the preamp?
Or would it be better to switch both?
 
#37
Not to bump for no reason...I was looking through to get ideas on a mod I've been toying with on one of my Jazz basses and a couple pre's that I have swapped or removed the pre completely out of basses I have lying around, one of which is a MEC. Through the years, I've had several MIG 'Wicks, from 'Vettes/Thumbs/Streamers/FNA's, 4 and 5 strings, 2 and 3 band pres. In each one, I've changed the pickup/preamp, with the exception on the FNA. It had such a sweet, warm, burpy/barky tone, I wasn't gonna mess with perfection, so to speak. On the others, depending on body woods, the MEC pre worked better with this pickup or that, and some the MEC pickups worked better with this preamp or that. Bottom line, it's suggestive, as my 20+ year guitar player can't tell the difference when I mod something...
 
#39
Matt78 said:
Not to bump for no reason...I was looking through to get ideas on a mod I've been toying with on one of my Jazz basses and a couple pre's that I have swapped or removed the pre completely out of basses I have lying around, one of which is a MEC. Through the years, I've had several MIG 'Wicks, from 'Vettes/Thumbs/Streamers/FNA's, 4 and 5 strings, 2 and 3 band pres. In each one, I've changed the pickup/preamp, with the exception on the FNA. It had such a sweet, warm, burpy/barky tone, I wasn't gonna mess with perfection, so to speak. On the others, depending on body woods, the MEC pre worked better with this pickup or that, and some the MEC pickups worked better with this preamp or that. Bottom line, it's suggestive, as my 20+ year guitar player can't tell the difference when I mod something...
Click to expand...

I wonder if your FNA had a Seymour Duncan preamp. If it was an early one it might have also had a SD pickup.
 
#40
somebrains said:
I wonder if your FNA had a Seymour Duncan preamp. If it was an early one it might have also had a SD pickup.
Click to expand...
I have a picture in an album somewhere unless one of the kids took it where I'm playing it on stage and another in the hotel room "warming up" with some Makers Mark. I'll look for them cause I know the one in the hotel room clearly shows the pickup. I'm curious now as well. When I find, I'll post it. She's unforgettable... Flame maple top with gold hardware...and tone as smooth as butter with a little burp on it. ONLY Wick I didn't do squat to. Dude offered me double what I paid for it at a time when the local shop had my '05 Limited Edition MM on sale...happened what he offered pretty well covered the other one enough I didn't have to move to the couch (totally would have though, lol), sold it. Still have MM, but regret letting the FNA go.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back