Sell me on your favorite PJ pup set!

#62
I change my mind about pickups from one day to the next. But for the guys who complain about balancing the pickups, here's my solution:
3 way PJs.jpg


Stacked Vol/Vol, with a tone control and a Les Paul (Switchcraft) 3 way switch. I balance (or emphasize one) like tuning up, before the song, if needed, or usually just at the beginning of a set. The tone is the tone, but I hardly ever go from "thump/thump" to "crackle and pop" in one song anyway.

Edit: Oops, forgot about this one. These actually come with a three way, but I went with a trusted Switchcraft anyway, with the stacked Vol/Vol and single tone.
my mustang switching.jpg
 
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#64
Mycomancer said:
Getting a custom PJ bass made, deciding on what passive pickups I want to put in.

Some things I want:

- VERSATILITY.... if the pickups try to sell themselves to a very specific genre clique, it won't work for me. Sometimes I want to dial in ultra dark Reggae and hiphop tones, sometimes I want to have 2 delays on playing crisp chords and sliding leads, sometimes I want to play the entire neck for jazz.... and pretty much everything in between. I need this to be...as much as possible a "one bass fits all" situation for a guy who wears a ton of hats

- I especially don't want something with an excessively hot output, or a very bright/modern tone

- Preferably, I don't want a super wimpy J-pickup just because its a PJ configuration

- I don't want something that it sounds like muddy doodoo in the highest register, I play above the 12th fret all the time - and am in fact getting a 24 fret bass specifically because I use all of them

I tend to look for a darker more vintage tone most of the time, especially with P all the way up.... but I like to dial up and even solo the bridge J every now and then and do really whacky stuff.


Right now, the top of my list is The EMG GZR's, as it seems they are a faithful vintage replication that seemingly offer versatility and a surprisingly affordable package.

However... am willing to be sold on another set before I pull the trigger! Please give me your opinions!
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Highly recommend checking out Coils
Boutique, they seem to check your boxes. I have a P set in one of my basses that has a Nortstrand preamp and most of the time I play it in passive because it sounds so good.

They have J pickups and PJ sets, but I only have experience with this model. I’d recommend them to anyone though.

 
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#66
There are lots of great sounding PJ sets out there. You can't really go wrong with the most popular choices from companies like Lollar, Fralin, Seymour Duncan, EMG, not to mention lots of great sounding alternatives from smaller "boutique" manufacturers. It will be purely down to personal taste so you won't really know until you try them yourself in YOUR bass, with YOUR rig. Any other changes you make to your signal chain will probably make a much bigger difference than the difference between two vintage voiced P-bass pickups. Changing to a different type strings will have a MUCH larger impact on your tone than the comparatively small difference between two similar sounding pickups.

Reading the recommendations in this thread (and all over talkbass) you would think the EMG Geezers are somehow in a league of their own. They're not. They are one of many quite similar sounding, "vintage" voiced P-bass pickups but with more clever marketing (they've been praised ad nauseam by EMG endorsers on this forum).

A couple of points about the EMG Geezers:

-Some posters have mentioned that the J-pickup is kinda weak compared to the P-pickup and that it feels like an afterthough. I could say the same about many (but not all) PJ-sets. This really is a common issues with PJs. On the other hand, how many J-pickups did Geezer actually have on his P-bass back in the day? I gotta hand it to EMG, they're really good at marketing (but to be fair they make very good pickups too).

-If you want a really dark, reggae-style tone you might want a higher value tone cap than the .047 that comes with the Geezers. Personally I think .047 tone cap won't quite get you into that territory but as always YMMV. My point is, the tiny surface mount tone cap on the Geezers can be a lot more fiddly to replace IF you're not happy with the response of the tone control. A more conventional solution with soldered pots will be easier to modify IF you're not happy.
 
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#67
J Wilson said:
I far prefer one knob for overall gain and adjusting a blender. Two separate gains is just aggravating to control overall volume, having to drop both if I'm too loud or not loud enough, and trying to get the same blend turning two gains up and down is too much work. Far faster and easier with one gain and a blender.

I'd never owned a Jazz Bass till a few years ago. I'd played active setups with vol/blend layouts and was quite satisfied at the simplicity and speed of adjustment. This Jazz was the classic gain/gain/tone, and it made me nuts if I had to turn up or down on two knobs, then finding that exact blend I had . . . . but lost when I moved everything. Life is too short, so I had it rewired (and it's a passive setup) gain/blend/tone, and never looked back, sanity had been restored.

You get arguments about 'well, you go all front pickup, but you never lose all of the back pickup' and other considerations, some will say 'well adjusting the two gains IS the secret', and I could care less, it just suits me, and that's all that really matters.

It's entirely subjective, and what works for me may not be your best choice, but for me it's the only way I'm happy.
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Yeah the whole 'two separate volume knobs' thing does my head in. Blend knob ftw.
 
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#68
beaglesandbass said:
Highly recommend checking out Coils
Boutique, they seem to check your boxes. I have a P set in one of my basses that has a Nortstrand preamp and most of the time I play it in passive because it sounds so good.

They have J pickups and PJ sets, but I only have experience with this model. I’d recommend them to anyone though.

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Been checking these out all morning and they have piqued my interest. I do have a concern that maybe you could clear up for me though...

I am firmly in the "Quarter Pounders are too hot" camp, are these coils boutique pups going to overdrive at full volume because that would drive me nuuuuuuuts
 
#69
Mycomancer said:
Been checking these out all morning and they have piqued my interest. I do have a concern that maybe you could clear up for me though...

I am firmly in the "Quarter Pounders are too hot" camp, are these coils boutique pups going to overdrive at full volume because that would drive me nuuuuuuuts
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I have not noticed any overdrive at full volume in passive mode or with the preamp engaged. I don't think they run hot at all. If I get a chance today, I'll sit down and experiment though. You can always use their contact page and send them a message.
 
#70
beaglesandbass said:
I have not noticed any overdrive at full volume in passive mode or with the preamp engaged. I don't think they run hot at all. If I get a chance today, I'll sit down and experiment though. You can always use their contact page and send them a message.
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After a full day of research yesterday, I was almost ready to pull the trigger on some Nordstrands - but these Coils Boutique pups are really winning me over and are literally $100 cheaper so... I really want to like them haha

Thanks so much for putting them on my radar
 
#71
After a lot of pj experiments I mailed Nordstrand with about the same question you posted. The set they advised me is still in my Yamaha BB after maybe 10 years now? And it will probably never be changed. The humcanceling J is a perfect match in output to the P.

I did keep on experimenting with the electronics. Active, passive, blend, all kinds of pot values. The end result is a 5 way switch (with two blended positions inbetween the obvious three) + stacked vol & tone and a series switch.
 
#72
My vote is a Nordstrand NP4/5 matched to the soapbar sized Big Split in the bridge position. The sensor width of the soapbar is much wider and closer to the P pickup sensor width which I think makes for a much more balanced tonal match with no single coil hum. They will make the bridge pickup to match the P output for you and it wasn't any more expensive really than any other option I found. Also, get them to recommend a tone pot for you as mine goes from very bright to very mellow/dubby with the tone pot right down. You might need to route out the bridge pickup hole though.
 
#73
I’ve found the original EMG to be one of the most balanced sets . Before trying my first set I thought I’d hate them bring a passive bass kinda guy. I now have 2 basses with the originals and 1 with an X set. Great pickups.

For a passive set my vote goes for the Wilde. I have these in an unlined maple fretless Warmoth build strung with GHS Tapewounds and it’s one of my favorite and best sounding basses.
 
#75
AndyLES said:
Known by whom? And you do know that factory specs are just guidelines, and that tolerances per instrument vary, and that you should use your ears when setting up instruments?
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Known by other commenters on TB, google is your friend. And yes, I started at factory specs and experimented from there. Sorry if my experience differs from yours, but the fact of the matter is I, and many others, would not call the GZR PJ set properly balanced.

Edit: even the biggest GZR pusher around here (you probably know him by name) admits that the total volume drops when diming both pups for him. As far as i'm concerned, if you have to adjust the master volume at all when goin between a two pickup bass, the set is a failure, full stop. There are ways around it on a PJ set, (see Yamaha BB basses, the fender Tony Franlin, etc), but many manufacturers don't bother to match outputs on PJ basses. That's why the PJ setup is so divisive around here, IMO, is many people have had poorly matched sets.
 
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#78
AndyLES said:
Google is also your friend; look up, "insertion loss." It's common to ALL passive PJ design circuits. And this has nothing to do with whether the volumes between pickups are balanced.
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A problem that is worse with some pickups than others. Are you trying to argue that it's not possible that there is a valid reason that somebody on the internet might prefer the balance of some passive PJ sets over others?

Having owned both a yamaha BB424X and a GZR equipped PJ at the some time, and having done quite a bit of pickup height experimentation between them, I can tell you that the way those pickups were matched in terms of output is significantly different, and it absolutely impacts usability. You can chose to believe it or not.
 
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#80
Lo-E said:
Barts are very even and very hi-fi. They sound sort of polite. Beautiful for pop and jazz but I prefer a more traditional style pickup for rock.

Wilde makes an extremely well balanced set that is very even across all frequencies.

The original EMG P/J sets didn’t impress me much back in the ‘80s but they’ve really grown on me. Also very even and they can punch and growl more than I realized they could back then.

All three above would suit your needs but my strongest pitch would be Fralin. Don’t just order a stock Fralin set; Call him up. Talk to him on the phone for a while and discuss what you want. He’s really into his job and he’ll wind anything you want - and he’ll take it back and wind you something else if you don’t like it! His pickups already fit the description you gave in your OP but he’ll listen to what you want, make suggestions, brainstorm…. He likes the process of working with his customers and getting them what they want.
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There was nothing polite about my Bart’s tone. I was in a punk rock band playing with a drummer who pounded on the loudest set of Sonors I’ve ever heard. Padulla MVP4, Bart PJ set. In your face punch. I’m chasing that tone now with my bordwell build.
 
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