Least mid heavy bridge pickup

[RoadToNever]

If the pure and basic sound of a pickup doesn't do it for you, no EQ will make it better. You can certainly filter out some unneeded stuff, but the core tone has to be there or you don't have shit. Think microphones in studios...and it all starts with the instrument itself. Pickups are windows into the tone of the instrument; they're not the source of the tone.

Right on, Rick. On my bass I've tried SC, SC-size HB, mini-HB & standard HB in different positions all they all push the sound in different directions beyond Q and frequency of resonant peak. Folks claiming that you can get a real humbucker sound out of a SC-sized HB are lying or uninformed.

So I've been trying out the treble cut on bridge PU that Dave suggested last couple of weeks. Holy Moly! Hello coherence! I chose a 7500pF value after audiotioning different values and it retains a little more mid presence for rock and jazz styles. I get a great bread and butter rock tone with both PUs at full. Further more neck PU volume controls acts like a handy low cut and vice versa.
Here's a clip with neck PU down a notch:
7500pf.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

Still I'm not giving up on the idea of the bridge HB in parallel, at least until I've tried it out. I forse a lack of mid presence but I hope it will give me an additonal tonality to work with for chamber-rock type music.
The higher output L500 I ordered fot this is this still in it's bubble wrap. I'm digging the tone I've got now too much to wan't to mess with the bass.

PS I also changed the tone cap value to 2200pF. Was never happy with the high-mid peak I was getting with a standard vale tone cap aven after upgrading to Klotz low capacitance cable and in retrospect I gained harmonics I was missing from the flatwounds.

[David Schwab]

Folks claiming that you can get a real humbucker sound out of a SC-sized HB are lying or uninformed.

But... what does a "real humbucker" sound like? Single coil sized humbuckers are narrow aperture. They don't sound exactly like single cols either. I don't like the ones that try and sound like a bigger pickup by being too dark sounding.

[RoadToNever]

But... what does a "real humbucker" sound like? Single coil sized humbuckers are narrow aperture. They don't sound exactly like single cols either. I don't like the ones that try and sound like a bigger pickup by being too dark sounding.

Duh, Duncan Seth Lovers. DiMarzio users don't know what they are missing.
Oh, we're talking about bass...
But seriously I've found humbuckers with wider aperture mainly have "tons of lows" for better and for worse.

EDIT: Dave I checked out the SGD site again. Your descriptions of tonal differences between wide and narrow aperture are much better than mine. Kudos for offering a nice selection of pickups for a reasonable price and an informative website. I wonder why you don't offer guitar pickups. The likes of Lace, Q-tuner and Bill Lawrence indicate there's a market for progressive guitar pickups.

[David Schwab]

Duh, Duncan Seth Lovers. DiMarzio users don't know what they are missing.
Oh, we're talking about bass...
But seriously I've found humbuckers with wider aperture mainly have "tons of lows" for better and for worse.

EDIT: Dave I checked out the SGD site again. Your descriptions of tonal differences between wide and narrow aperture are much better than mine. Kudos for offering a nice selection of pickups for a reasonable price and an informative website. I wonder why you don't offer guitar pickups. The likes of Lace, Q-tuner and Bill Lawrence indicate there's a market for progressive guitar pickups.

My point was a "humbucker" is a pickup that doesn't hum, not a particular style of pickup. To say a "humbucker" is a Duncan Seth Lover is like saying an "electric bass" is a Fender Jazz. They are but one example. Most bass players think a humbucker is a Music Man pickup.

Personally I like the Alnico II Pros better than the Lovers, and I'd never owned a Jazz, but I have to Rickenbacker 4001s.

Getting back to the SC sized humbuckers, I like the ones that sound like single coils. I don't like the ones that try to sound like full size humbuckers. I installed a Duncan Little '59 in a customer's Tele and really disliked it. It was dark and muddy sounding, like a parody of full size humbucker. I had another customer bring me his Les Paul to hear his neww set of boutique PAF clones he got... and didn't like. They were dull and lifeless. One again, it's this idea that humbuckers are overly warm and don't have any snap to them.

[RoadToNever]

Have you come in contact with Lawrence L-45? It's a SC sized dual rail that's supposed to sound like a single coil with some alterations in frequency response I guess to sound better with common tone stacks. There are some awesome souding demos on youtube.
I have it's bigger brother the L90 in an LP copy and compared to the L500 it has a bump in the low-bass high-mid area and sparklier highs. It also has a standard wide magnetic aperture compared to the L500 mini-HB-like aperture. I tried the L90 in my bass and it sounded very pleasant but too smooth overall for my taste in either position paralell or series.
I listened to a comparative recording between the L-45 and one of bills 'linear' singlecoils(aircoil?) and heard freq. responce differences to simmilar effect.
I also tried a different Lawrence dual rail design that went under the names L450 and later L250. It had mids scooped with a wide and pronounced peak in the high mids. It kind of reminded me of a J-bass sound but more 'modern'. Took it out as it wasnt the tone I was looking for.
Sorry about the rambling, the hour is late here. I mention all these observation of mine FWIW but I'm sure they are all interesting designs to study. I know you are already familiar with Bills single rail sidewinder which I find lovely in the neck position of my bass.

[David Schwab]

Have you come in contact with Lawrence L-45? It's a SC sized dual rail that's supposed to sound like a single coil with some alterations in frequency response I guess to sound better with common tone stacks. There are some awesome souding demos on youtube.

Yeah, I installed one recently. It didn't sound like a single coil. It was more like a clean humbucker. Nice pickup though, but could have been snappier sounding for my tastes. Also I doubt the frequency response was altered for common tone stacks. That's not really possible. When you are dealing with a narrow aperture humbucker like this, you have to watch how hot you wind them, or they get very midrangy. So you just have to balance output with where the resonant peak is. The L-45 wasn't midrangy, but it also didn't have as much high end as a single coil. It was very mellow and smooth sounding.

I make some dual rail bass pickups like this that fit in a Jazz Bass pickup cover, and I've been prototyping some Strat pickups that use neo magnets.

I listened to a comparative recording between the L-45 and one of bills 'linear' singlecoils(aircoil?) and heard freq. responce differences to simmilar effect.

What do you mean by "linear" single coil? You mean like the L-250 with the single blade? I have a two of those, and a Tele version. Those are sidewinders.

His more recent noise free singles are stacked pickups, similar to the Fender SCN which he designed.

Bill made air coil pickups for acoustic guitars. An air coil doesn't have a steel core, so the inductance is lower and they have a "cleaner" tone with less mids.

[RoadToNever]

I agree less bright than a typical single-coils, based on vs type clips I've heard.
Still I was amazed, while the Youtube clip of Bill playing Bach on a surf green strat made me think "that sound nice" there is an other clip of a gentleman playing chicken pickin on a tele with the same pickup with all the twang in the world. I later stumbled upon the info that Bill used a Fender Twin with JBL D120 drivers and the country fellow used a Tech21 modeling amp, likely in "fender mode".

Like I said before I have the big brother L90 In an LP copy and I'm often surprised about how easy it is to dial in workable tones from different amps.
Can you see where I get the tonestack voicing idea from? They seem to take EQ really well!

With linear I'm refering to the L280 which along with the L500 is marketed as such. The L90 and L45 are officially referred to as being 'voiced'.