OLP Stinkray Replacement P'up?

Count Bassie

Count Bassie

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Jun 10, 2006
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#1
Got one cheep in a really cool blue, no pickguard. Plays nice, I like the neck. The p'up is pretty darned lackluster though- my Epiphone Blackbird with one pickup has a ton more gain and punch. I don't expect to get a Music Man out of it, but anyone have a recommendation for a better passive p'up for it?

Interesting, out-of-the-box ideas are ok... thanks for looking in.
 
#2
If you want to remain passive and look for gain and punch, a G&L would be killer. It requires some routing of the body though.
Of course you could go with full MM electronics, they aren't too hard to find but a MM pickup pretty much requires a preamp.
Actually, stock OLP pickups are cecent but they beg for a good preamp. I'd try that before changing the pickup.
 
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#3
Jazz Ad said:
If you want to remain passive and look for gain and punch, a G&L would be killer. It requires some routing of the body though.
Of course you could go with full MM electronics, they aren't too hard to find but a MM pickup pretty much requires a preamp.
Actually, stock OLP pickups are cecent but they beg for a good preamp. I'd try that before changing the pickup.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply there. I've been trying to remain passive for this stuff, but a pre might actually be an expedient option, which is good in its own right, as I don't have lots of time to linger over this. I like the way it plays, how can I make it work...

I'll have a gander at pre possibilities. Thanks again man!
 
#6
I think the stock pickup in my OLP 5 sounds killer. I wired it in parallel and preferred the tone to my Ernie Ball SUB, the old ones made in California, not the new SUB. I sold the SUB and kept the OLP.

That said I like Bartolini's options. No exposed poles so no clicking, fully shielded. You can get a triple coil so you can have series / parallel / single coil options all humbucking and it works fine passive. They make many variations so you can dial in punchy mids or wider hifi range.
 
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#11
Count Bassie said:
Got one cheep in a really cool blue, no pickguard. Plays nice, I like the neck. The p'up is pretty darned lackluster though- my Epiphone Blackbird with one pickup has a ton more gain and punch. I don't expect to get a Music Man out of it, but anyone have a recommendation for a better passive p'up for it?

Interesting, out-of-the-box ideas are ok... thanks for looking in.
Click to expand...


I got a Maestro 5 string Stingray clone ... I rewired it with an Audere 4 band preamp and it turned out pretty awesome.

http://www.3dentourage.com/425/maestro-mm5.htm

upload_2017-9-30_11-7-48.jpeg
 
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#12
Count Bassie said:
Got one cheep in a really cool blue, no pickguard. Plays nice, I like the neck. The p'up is pretty darned lackluster though- my Epiphone Blackbird with one pickup has a ton more gain and punch. I don't expect to get a Music Man out of it, but anyone have a recommendation for a better passive p'up for it?

Interesting, out-of-the-box ideas are ok... thanks for looking in.
Click to expand...

I owned a few of those and like you found the pickup pretty meh. I tried several pickups, from GFS to Nordstrand. I preferred the Seymour Duncan SMB4A (alnico). Great sounding pickup transformed the OLP.

As for the MM pickups needing a preamp... not at all. It's nice to have a preamp, especially one that is similar to the MusicMan one if you're trying to get as close as possible to a Stingray sound, but you most definitely DO NOT need a preamp. There's plenty of grunt in there without boosting anything with an onboard pre... as countless passive Stingray-like basses show, including EBMM's own "SUB" from 2003-2006: they came in passive and active forms, and the passive ones sound every bit as good, you just don't get the tone shaping capability that the onboard 2EQ preamp gives you.
 
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#13
Count Bassie said:
Thanks for the reply there. I've been trying to remain passive for this stuff, but a pre might actually be an expedient option, which is good in its own right, as I don't have lots of time to linger over this. I like the way it plays, how can I make it work...

I'll have a gander at pre possibilities. Thanks again man!
Click to expand...

Two potential options jump out at me:

1. You could try something external and keep it passive. If you replace the pots with the ones that take the pots entirely out of the circuit when at maximum that is essentially the pickup straight to the output jack, but you'd still have the option of using them as passive tone controls. There are some quite small preamps that could fit on a strap, so you'd still be able to control it relatively easily, and you could even use one of the circuits that is pretty much identical to the MM preamp. Or you could use a push-push on the tone switch to activate straight through from pickups to jack rather than three special pots.

2. You could maybe rewrire and have an active/passive switch. AFAIR the OLPs have a volume for each half of the pickup so if you rewired parallel and used a dual concentric pot for passive volume and tone. Then a dual concentric for bass and treble with a two band preamp. and an active volume on a push-pull switch. This would mean no additional holes, and the push-push switch would change from passive only to active only.

I'd recommend push-push - with push-pull I once pulled the knob off.
 
#14
fermata said:
A passive MM pickup can sound great--when wired in series. I did a passive MM mod using a GFS MM Pro pickup, and it turned out really well. (If you have a four-hole control plate, you could have output jack, tone control, volume, and coil selector/OMG switch. And the .001uF loading cap is the secret sauce, I think.)
Click to expand...


That is true: a Stingray pickup wired with the coil in series is a thing of beauty, very punchy and powerful. The mods above can be quite cool too.
 
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#18
Count Bassie said:
Got one cheep in a really cool blue, no pickguard. Plays nice, I like the neck. The p'up is pretty darned lackluster though- my Epiphone Blackbird with one pickup has a ton more gain and punch. I don't expect to get a Music Man out of it, but anyone have a recommendation for a better passive p'up for it?

Interesting, out-of-the-box ideas are ok... thanks for looking in.
Click to expand...
4 or 5 string? I have a couple of mm pups in my parts box and a couple of preamps.
 
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