Hey bass players!! I give a crap what you think!!

Purge

Purge

Traitorous Usurper
Right, so I just got myself a used Ibanez SB900 and I need some pickup suggestions. I've been playing guitar for 20 years, and while I can handle things pretty well on the skill end of a bass, it's become apparent that I know squat about these instruments. I believe this is a P-J configuration...and here's what I'm looking for, in high-speak professional terms. I want a nice "BONNGGG" sound when doing a thumb slap. I'm not really into the Moving Pictures "GGGGBBBZZZZZZZ" sound, or a "BRUMBLABRUMBLELEMBRA" sound...more of a crispy twang with some treble response, like a "DUNGADENGADUNGADENGA" sound. "WHOMMMMPHHH" is definitely right out as well...I have every intention of being the annoying kind of prick who plays the bass like a guitar, and I'll be needing more definition to my notes. If these terms are too far over anybody's head, I apologize for sounding like a pretentious progressive metal musican!:D

If the popular vote goes to EMG's, do I have to do any additional routing work, or will they fit in there nicely as is?
 
Dude,

The sound is all in how you play the bass. Changing the pickups isn't going to make as much as a difference as a few inexpensive options.


If you want to have the hard rock sound, use a pick and use new roundwound strings. The smaller the speaker in the cabinet the better. The 'broing' is coming from the new string and the fact that it is a roundwound. The pick is going to give you the clear articulate sound with a really great grainy type of sound as it snaps into the 'new' string. Old strings will sound 'whoofy' right away as all the high end gets sucked out of 'em. If that's not doing it for ya, try throwing on a bit of distortion. Most of the bass distortions let you blend clean signal back into because usually the bottom just dissapears when you distort it (Motorhead kind of thing).

I'd just adjust my playing before I started ripping out the guts of your axe. If you're set on a new pickup set EMG's were the fad for the longest time but most guys I know still go passive. I've got a Yamaha BBNE2 with actives and it's great but 99% of the time I'm just leaving the onboard EQ flat because it starts to sound artificial with huge boosts.

G'luck.

Andy
 
AndyK12 said:
Dude,

The sound is all in how you play the bass. Changing the pickups isn't going to make as much as a difference as a few inexpensive options.


If you want to have the hard rock sound, use a pick and use new roundwound strings. The smaller the speaker in the cabinet the better. The 'broing' is coming from the new string and the fact that it is a roundwound. The pick is going to give you the clear articulate sound with a really great grainy type of sound as it snaps into the 'new' string. Old strings will sound 'whoofy' right away as all the high end gets sucked out of 'em. If that's not doing it for ya, try throwing on a bit of distortion. Most of the bass distortions let you blend clean signal back into because usually the bottom just dissapears when you distort it (Motorhead kind of thing).

I'd just adjust my playing before I started ripping out the guts of your axe. If you're set on a new pickup set EMG's were the fad for the longest time but most guys I know still go passive. I've got a Yamaha BBNE2 with actives and it's great but 99% of the time I'm just leaving the onboard EQ flat because it starts to sound artificial with huge boosts.

G'luck.

Andy
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks for the info. Actually, here's the funny thing on this bass in particular: I just picked it up at GC and they gave it to me for 100 bucks since it had been sitting on their shelf for 2 years, and the electronics don't work. :eek: So I figured at that price (and it's a bass I've always wanted for some bizarre reason) I could afford to just rewire the thing from scratch and toss in whatever the preferred "pickup du jour" happened to be.
 
Heh, that would be funny. But no, the pups in there right now are passive.

I think.

Shit.

I better check when I get home.

:o:D
 
leave it as is unless you are willing to do some router work, however....
if you are willing to do some router work, my recommendations would be some Dark Star pickups from Hammon Engineering but these are not cheap... 200 bucks a pop
or some GFS MM Pro Plus Alnico Music Man style pickup from guitar fetish
which sound almost as good as the dark stars but about 150 bucks cheaper.
 
dgatwood said:
Bets on whether it just needs a battery? :D
Click to expand...

Hilarious. They're active.:D

Smart as I'm feeling right now, why not keep it going? They're Seymour Duncan Bass Lines. I'm a big fan of their guitar pups (who isn't?) but the Bass Lines are a new deal to me. Anybody have thoughts/experience/insults to throw at these?

Looks like the "short" was coming off of the battery clip, seeing how one of the wires isn't even attached. I'll grab somebody to else to fix it up, since I'm even more dangerous with a soldering iron than you could possibly believe. But I'm thinking that might've been the best 100 bucks I've ever spent.
 
just my .02

I've always gotten the best slap sounds out of gallien-kruger amps. I used to own a 400 RB-III and it was really great for that. Best slap sounds ever. It caught fire on me one day and I ended up replacing it with a hartke. Hasn't been the same but it still sounds good! It can be tricky for guitarists switching to bass to find good bass tone. As far as pickup replacements are concerned...the ones you have are actually pretty good. I would urge you explore the tonal range of the existing ones through a decent amp. To do so, put a fresh pair of strings on the bass and play it through until they are dull. If you find you are still not satisfied with it after hearing the bass at every point through it's "tonal lifespan" so-to-speak, change em out!

Good luck!
 
Own & Rogue, thanks for your replies. Definitely looking forward to checking this out...I'll take it into the shop next week and have the folks there fiddle with all the wiring. It looks like quite a home brew job that the previous owner pulled off, so I won't be messing with it much myself.
 
You can't go wrong with bartolini passives (beautiful sound), or EMG actives which have a really hi-fi tone. Haven't played through Duncans.
 
i always thought entwistle coaxed out the max from a bass string ...comes with years of practice rather than a pickup replacement...its all in the fingers.
 
I put passive bass lines into my beater Alvarez, and I don't think I'll ever change them out. I can only imagine that the active ones sound even better.
 
It's alive!! The repair cost 15 bucks, and now I've got a decent cheap bass that sounds pretty damn not bad. Happy me.:D
 
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