Killer Passive Bass Pickups

[rauchman]

Greetings,

The Warmoth Tele I've been working on has now entered assembly stage, from finish stage.  And now, contemplating my next project.  I have a few guitars, so how about …..a bass!!!???

I have an MIM Fender PJ bass that I like, but find the neck a little long.  I've had an Ibanez SR500 and loved the shape and neck, but hated that it had active pups.  I do not want batteries on a guitar.  Dinking around the Warmoth site has me looking at a short scale neck, a Gecko body, but the pickups...…

If I go ahead and build the bass, there is a huge learning curve ahead of me in terms of parts.  Any recommendations on punchy bass pups that are passive?

 

[AirCap]

Fender Noiseless, or Bill Lawrence.

 

[drewfx]

A couple things:

You can't put a short scale neck on a Gecko body; W's short scale necks require their short scale bodies.

"Active" basses more often than not means passive PU's with an active preamp. There are lots of punchy bass PU's.

You might want to figure out what PU form factor you want first before asking for recommendations. At least if you don't want multiple recommendation for each and every type.

 

[rauchman]

A couple things:

You can't put a short scale neck on a Gecko body; W's short scale necks require their short scale bodies.

"Active" basses more often than not means passive PU's with an active preamp. There are lots of punchy bass PU's.

You might want to figure out what PU form factor you want first before asking for recommendations. At least if you don't want multiple recommendation for each and every type.

Thanks for the info.  When you say form factor on the pups, what does that mean?  Single coil vs humbucker and so on, or something else?

Didn't realize that the pups are passive, but it's the preamp that requires a battery.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

EMG Geezer Butler set.

I know, EMG's, but, these are passive, easy to install, quite noiseless and they do sound great.

 

[ghotiphry]

Are you doing a P/J?  A P or a J?  Something completely different, like soapbars?

 

[drewfx]

Thanks for the info.  When you say form factor on the pups, what does that mean?  Single coil vs humbucker and so on, or something else?

By form factor I mean PU shape/rout, i.e. P-Bass/J-Bass/MM/various soapbars/SCPB/etc. For a good example of the huge variety of bass PU's available, take a look here:

http://www.bestbassgear.com/bass-pickups.htm

So I was thinking you might want to narrow things down a bit as there are a huge number of good choices.

 

[rauchman]

Are you doing a P/J?  A P or a J?  Something completely different, like soapbars?

Honestly don't know yet.  Haven't gone down the rabbit hole far enough yet to know.  While I have a pretty good idea of how different electric guitar pickups sound, I'm far from well versed enough on the bass end of things to know what I want.  The only thing I know for sure that I want is...… no batteries.

Ironically, the one bass I do have is a P/J Fender, so I think it is both P and J?  I can't remember what was in the Ibanez that I had, but listening to some of the recordings I did with it, it did have a nice growl at times.

 

[ghotiphry]

Ok, my opinion below.

If you're going for that barky tone, I would recommend a jazz bass arrangement with single coil pickups.  Precision basses and their split coil are generally known for more "boom" than "bark."  Noiseless pickups generally are more rounded by nature, although not necessarily.  However, seeing as the jazz bass arrangement naturally has noise cancellation due to orientation (if you have them dialed in equally) you will probably find more of that tone with single coils.  If you're looking to solo individual jazz pickups, that's another kettle of fish. 

Now, there are lots and lots of jazz bass pickups.  I would recommend you head over to youtube and plug in the following:

fralin jazz pickups
nordstrand nj4 pickups
fender custom shop 60s jazz bass pickups
lollar jazz bass pickups
seymour duncan jazz bass pickups

Yeah, it's a lot.  But the best way for you to find what you're looking for may just be to spend some time listening for it.

I'm going to add one more, a bit more modern sounding but very cool:

Lace Aluma-J

Ask questions if you need to!

 

[rauchman]

Ok, my opinion below.

If you're going for that barky tone, I would recommend a jazz bass arrangement with single coil pickups.  Precision basses and their split coil are generally known for more "boom" than "bark."  Noiseless pickups generally are more rounded by nature, although not necessarily.  However, seeing as the jazz bass arrangement naturally has noise cancellation due to orientation (if you have them dialed in equally) you will probably find more of that tone with single coils.  If you're looking to solo individual jazz pickups, that's another kettle of fish. 

Now, there are lots and lots of jazz bass pickups.  I would recommend you head over to youtube and plug in the following:

fralin jazz pickups
nordstrand nj4 pickups
fender custom shop 60s jazz bass pickups
lollar jazz bass pickups
seymour duncan jazz bass pickups

Yeah, it's a lot.  But the best way for you to find what you're looking for may just be to spend some time listening for it.

I'm going to add one more, a bit more modern sounding but very cool:

Lace Aluma-J

Ask questions if you need to!

Wow!  Thank you, that info is very appreciated!

 

[amigarobbo]

I was going to recommend the Lace Alumatone ones, sorta EMGish, but it's hard to describe, no batteries.

[youtube]AZ8ks3GiO6E[/youtube]

I'd recommend go for the bars not the Jazz style as you can split/tap/ :icon_scratch:  them to thin the sound out.

 

[Cagey]

The only thing I know for sure that I want is...… no batteries.

I'm not sure why batteries are a non-starter for you, but for me for many years it was fear of leakage and the subsequent instrument damage, or inconvenient "dead" times. But, batteries don't leak like they used to. Takes a very long time, if it happens at all, and life expectancy is much longer than it used to be. So, I don't know if you'd want to completely eliminate such an arrangement on that requirement alone. At least, as far as pickups are concerned. Effects pedals seem to have gone in the opposite direction, to the point where using batteries is almost foolish, not to mention expensive.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I was dead seat against actives for decades, until I started recording quite regularly.
I've had the same 9'v battery in my guitars for almost 2 years now with no dropout in power and no acid leakage.
One of the huge benefits to the actives is headroom, which may not sound like much, but for bass recording direct, makes a huge difference in your gain structure.
For guitar, especially when recording with 6 & 7 string guitars, the consistency of the actives is far more reliable than the difference in pickups from 6 to 7 string formats in passives.

Put to case, let's consider the Dimarzio Evolution.  I had this as my main 6'er pickup for over a decade, and its relative 7 string counterpart.  The 7 string does indeed sound different and has a different gain structure because even though it may have the same amount of winds, it is indeed wound hotter due to the increased bobbin length.

The active preamp takes this into consideration and the gain structure/eq is far more consistent between 6 & 7 string formats as a result.

 

[BlueTalon]

If you're still thinking about which type of pickup to use, I recommend jazz pickups.  They are iconic, ubiquitous, and everybody makes them, making them probably the single most manufactured bass pickup available with virtually unlimited options.  But it does have its limitations.

Jazz basses were designed before hum-canceling bass pickups were a thing.  The original jazz design uses two oppositely-wound-opposite-polarity single-coil pickups to work together to cancel hum, which is fine when you have both pickups set at equal volume.  But if you solo either pickup, or have the volume favor one pickup or the other, they're susceptible to hum. 

In my opinion, the whole point of having two (or more) pickups is flexibility, and single coil pickups can defeat that purpose if you're forced to use the pickups at equal volume.

Advances in pickup technology have allowed the introduction of a few different types of hum canceling J pickups.  There are...
Stacked coils, where one coil is on top of the other coil and they share the magnets and poles;
Split-coils, or dual-inline-coil, where two coils are end-to-end inside the pickup housing, and each coil has its own magnet and poles and externally looks identical to single coil pickups;
Parallel coils, where the coils are side by side and each coil has its own magnet, and are typically identifiable by two parallel blades; 
Sidewinders, where full length coils are oriented sideways rather than vertically. 

By far, the most common of those is the split-coil, and for good reason.  They are essentially two single coil pickups laid end-to-end.  They are effective at eliminating hum, and they retain the sound of the single coil pickups.  And the majority of bass pickup manufacturers make a version of split-coil.

On my main bass, a Warmoth three-pickup jazz, I use three Fender Super 55 pickups which are the split-coil design.  I'd recommend those, except that Fender has chosen to discontinue them.  Fortunately there are plenty of other options.  In no particular order:

Aguilar
Bartolini
Bartolini
DiMarzio
DiMarzio
Delano
Fender
Lace
Lindy Fralin
Nordstrand
Seymour Duncan

A few other non-split-coil hum-canceling designs are worthy of mention:

Joe Barden (parallel coil)
Q-Tuner (sidewinder)
Lace Aluma J (no coils in the traditional sense)

This is not even an exhaustive list.  But it's a decent start.