Greetings Fellow Players! Hope you all are well.
I’ve lurked here for years and am grateful for the vast amounts of knowledge and entertainment you’ve given. For my first post I thought I’d try to give something back, in case you’ve need of anything below…
This bass is a 2019 Indonesian ESP LTD B-204SM, with the roasted Jatoba fingerboard (bought in Mandalay, Burma of all places). It is the easiest and fastest playing bass I’ve owned. For the five hundred range I’d recommend it to anyone. It sounded good when new. Since buying it I’ve realized I like the natural dynamics and tone of passive pickups so I pulled the preamp.
The original pickups are as described by some on the interwebs, neutral. They have a measured “output” in the 6Kohm range, both neck and bridge. The neck sounds neckish, the bridge sounds nasal and cutting like it should. Together they are scooped. But they are fairly flavorless when compared to anything Leo Fender made (P, J, MM, L2K), and likewise bland compared to the many aftermarket Fender-based pickups out there. I wanted more flavor. Considering price and availability of EMG35 size pickups I narrowed it down to, well EMG or Aguilar (if I had time I’d have waited for some Nordstrands to be built, but time constraints prevented that).
So I made my first purchase from Sweetwater. The DCBs are the second set of Aguilar pickups I’ve owned. Not highly impressed by the first, a five string P Bass set, they were ok and sounded P-ish (in that bass Nordstrand Jazz blades didn’t do much either, might just have been that bass). I’m cool with second chances, and after watching all the YouTube videos I could find decided the Aggies might work.
They went in easily enough, size was right. They didn’t come with any extra foam to support them in the cavity, I guess I could have cut up the bags they came in. I scalped the nice foam blocks from the originals and with a bit of tape they stuck on the DCBs fine. There is a mystery gray wire, a third wire. The online (not included) diagram shows it goes to ground, so I assume it is to ground some internal shielding? Anyhow, since both black and gray go to ground on their diagram I just tied them together and soldered them to ground. It was one of the more painless pickup installs I’ve done.
If they upload properly, the audio files are a comparison of the bridge pickups and neck pickups respectively. The DCBs are first, then the originals. They were recorded into an iPad mic, sorry for the background noise and low quality of sound. And another apology for the playing. I did play over the bridge in the same position on all tracks. And sorry, no slapping (maybe later if anyone needs it). The bass has four year old deadish GHS groundwounds/semi-flats on the E and A strings, with 10 year old La Bella Deep Talking Flats (from the 104 set) on the D and G. The preamp is a Zoom B3 pedal using the SWR amp patch into a cheap PA amp with the tweeter blocked.
Honestly, I can’t tell a huge difference, can you? The DCBs had a bit more bass in the room, and the bridge cut through better, with more mid and high-mid information to my ear. I almost prefer the original neck pickup, but it’s so close that I think the Aggies will stay in for now.
That leads to my conclusion - I need to save my money and maybe have a little more impulse control. In other words, the Aggies are a smidge better, but not 200 dollars plus better. Hope that helps someone out there. Please let me know if you need more info on anything related…
I’ve lurked here for years and am grateful for the vast amounts of knowledge and entertainment you’ve given. For my first post I thought I’d try to give something back, in case you’ve need of anything below…
This bass is a 2019 Indonesian ESP LTD B-204SM, with the roasted Jatoba fingerboard (bought in Mandalay, Burma of all places). It is the easiest and fastest playing bass I’ve owned. For the five hundred range I’d recommend it to anyone. It sounded good when new. Since buying it I’ve realized I like the natural dynamics and tone of passive pickups so I pulled the preamp.
The original pickups are as described by some on the interwebs, neutral. They have a measured “output” in the 6Kohm range, both neck and bridge. The neck sounds neckish, the bridge sounds nasal and cutting like it should. Together they are scooped. But they are fairly flavorless when compared to anything Leo Fender made (P, J, MM, L2K), and likewise bland compared to the many aftermarket Fender-based pickups out there. I wanted more flavor. Considering price and availability of EMG35 size pickups I narrowed it down to, well EMG or Aguilar (if I had time I’d have waited for some Nordstrands to be built, but time constraints prevented that).
So I made my first purchase from Sweetwater. The DCBs are the second set of Aguilar pickups I’ve owned. Not highly impressed by the first, a five string P Bass set, they were ok and sounded P-ish (in that bass Nordstrand Jazz blades didn’t do much either, might just have been that bass). I’m cool with second chances, and after watching all the YouTube videos I could find decided the Aggies might work.
They went in easily enough, size was right. They didn’t come with any extra foam to support them in the cavity, I guess I could have cut up the bags they came in. I scalped the nice foam blocks from the originals and with a bit of tape they stuck on the DCBs fine. There is a mystery gray wire, a third wire. The online (not included) diagram shows it goes to ground, so I assume it is to ground some internal shielding? Anyhow, since both black and gray go to ground on their diagram I just tied them together and soldered them to ground. It was one of the more painless pickup installs I’ve done.
If they upload properly, the audio files are a comparison of the bridge pickups and neck pickups respectively. The DCBs are first, then the originals. They were recorded into an iPad mic, sorry for the background noise and low quality of sound. And another apology for the playing. I did play over the bridge in the same position on all tracks. And sorry, no slapping (maybe later if anyone needs it). The bass has four year old deadish GHS groundwounds/semi-flats on the E and A strings, with 10 year old La Bella Deep Talking Flats (from the 104 set) on the D and G. The preamp is a Zoom B3 pedal using the SWR amp patch into a cheap PA amp with the tweeter blocked.
Honestly, I can’t tell a huge difference, can you? The DCBs had a bit more bass in the room, and the bridge cut through better, with more mid and high-mid information to my ear. I almost prefer the original neck pickup, but it’s so close that I think the Aggies will stay in for now.
That leads to my conclusion - I need to save my money and maybe have a little more impulse control. In other words, the Aggies are a smidge better, but not 200 dollars plus better. Hope that helps someone out there. Please let me know if you need more info on anything related…
