P/MM combination

thatpatguy

Newbie
Messages
2
Hi everyone.. I've decided to "build" a custom bass and got a body routed for a P and MM combination (I got the MM in the sweet spot and changed up the P route so the treble side is above the bass side to get out of the way of the MM pup).

I was curious if anyone had any recommendations for P and MM pups to pick up. Is the MM pup traditionally hotter than the P pup? should I get a high output P pup to go better with the MM pup? I literally know nothing, so any help would be HUGELY appreciated. Thanks!
 
Welcome to the forum.

What are you going for?

More vintage, more hot?
Passive or active?
Passive p/ups with active circuit?
What type of bass body is it?
Rear rout or pickguard?
Volume and tone configuration?
 
Welcome to the forum.

What are you going for?

More vintage, more hot?
Passive or active?
Passive p/ups with active circuit?
What type of bass body is it?
Rear rout or pickguard?
Volume and tone configuration?
Hi, and thanks for the welcome :)

So what I'm going for is trying to find the best I can do to get a hybrid between a P bass and a Stingray (knowing that it will never sound exactly like one or the other). In many respects this is an experiement so we'll see what happens.

For the most part I prefer the sounds of vintage basses. I'm primarily a P bass player and the tone I tend to chase is a nice fat vintage soul tone (think Duck Dunn or George Porter), but for this bass going a bit more modern might be fun. The body I've purchased is intended for passive electronics. It's a P bass body with a rear rout so I don't need a pick guard and is set up to handle three pots. I was thinking volume/volume/tone but I'd be ok with putting in stacked pots to give myself more variation if that makes sense.

As much as I prefer vintage tones, I have to admit, I prefer the sound of the more modern ceramic MM pups to the vintage Alnico ones, but I don't know how much the preamp affects/would change that. I do know that the Stingray tone really comes from the preamp, which I'm not doing for this bass. I'm also under the impression (because I feel that I read it somewhere) that the MM pups are traditionally hotter than P pups, so if that's true I definitely want to make sure I'm compensating for that so the MM pup doesn't overpower the P pup.

I was thinking of going with the Hot P pup and the ceramic MM pup from Seymour Duncan, but I'm 100% open to suggestions and ideas from people who know more about this stuff than I do. This my first custom build and it's all just a big experiement right now (one that I really hope works out, but we'll see)

Thanks!
 
The Seymour Duncan choices seem like a good starting point. Preamps of course will widen the tonal pallet.

Perhaps reach out to Seymour Duncan support, as they know their own products and combinations well. Perhaps you could send them a link to this thread, to see what they suggest, as it already describes what you want to do.
 
Back
Top