P pickup that sounds like a J neck pickup

#3
That's what I was afraid of, but I wanted to at least throw the question out there. Lots of people ask for a J pickup that sounds like a P. Guess I'm the odball that wants it the other way around.:wacky:
 
#4
some believe that the yamaha bb pickups and electronics sound more like jazzes and some think that the g&l lb100 pickups and electronics sound a little jazzy too
the little split coils in the old fender/squier bullets haves some jazz flavor too
 
#5
Single or split coil P?
I'll run my split coil P in parallel for what comes across as more jazzy. It's not a replication, but parallel leans towards the clarity and lower output of a J vs the low mid punch and volume of the traditional, series-wired P.
 
#6
bigtone23 said:
Single or split coil P?
I'll run my split coil P in parallel for what comes across as more jazzy. It's not a replication, but parallel leans towards the clarity and lower output of a J vs the low mid punch and volume of the traditional, series-wired P.
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Exactly. This was the idea behind Fender's S-1 switch, which was a series/parallel switch in the volume knob. It didn't make the P sound exactly like a J, but moved it in that direction. Even then, IMO the tone was more like a J with both pickups on full than just the neck pickup soloed.
 
#8
Part of the difference between a J pickup, and P pickup is the placement on the body, while most J pickups do not have the low mids of a P, they do have lows that a P won't do because the J neck pickup is so much closer to the neck. With it's position on the body, in relation to the bridge/neck, it most likely will sound even less like a j neck pickup in parallel, it would lose those low mids, and lose some of the deep lows it has, where they are on the body, and being single coil, is what gives Jazz basses the somewhat scooped mids sound, when compared to a P bass. Besides the placement, it's the nature of a dual coil pickup to have those mids, having the 2 coils in parallel would effectively turn the P into 2 single coil pickups, each of which is smaller, and weaker than a single J.
 
#9
Growlmonkee said:
the J neck pickup is so much closer to the neck
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Just to P-split some hairs, the J neck pickup is closer to the nut than where the bass coil of a split P is, but only by a fraction of an inch. (Obviously the treble strings are sensed significantly to the front of where they are on a P with a non-flipped pickup).

A pickup placement comparison chart I found in a post by @fnordlyone:

pickup_comparison_zps9ffdefd6-jpg.jpg

Pickup Placement, measurements of specific basses

For completeness, SCPB basses have their pickup even further neckward (but not quite to the Gibson/Rickenbacker/humbucker Tele neck position).
 
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#11
Growlmonkee said:
Part of the difference between a J pickup, and P pickup is the placement on the body, while most J pickups do not have the low mids of a P, they do have lows that a P won't do because the J neck pickup is so much closer to the neck. With it's position on the body, in relation to the bridge/neck, it most likely will sound even less like a j neck pickup in parallel, it would lose those low mids, and lose some of the deep lows it has, where they are on the body, and being single coil, is what gives Jazz basses the somewhat scooped mids sound, when compared to a P bass. Besides the placement, it's the nature of a dual coil pickup to have those mids, having the 2 coils in parallel would effectively turn the P into 2 single coil pickups, each of which is smaller, and weaker than a single J.
Click to expand...
Maybe the best way to have a split p pickup in parallel (each half as its own pickup) would be to use a very high output pickup like the SPB-2 , I may be way off base here but it is a very overwound pickup so it might work
 
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