Bass pickups as important as guitar pickups?

Well here's the thing, a lot of stock pickups on guitars are perfectly useable. A decent active on a bass pup is generally less intrusive than a passive (I prefer passives on guitars), sure of course there are better pickups as to how much it actually matters? Like everything else in audio is subjective.

I'd go by how they sound, if they sound bad or don't fit well when recording. Sure swap them.!

I would start with a nice setup and replace all the pots/switches and tone cap. Depending on the quality of the donor, also look at upgrading the bridge. I would do all that before swapping out the pups.

I think it makes a big difference, they either have their own signature tone or they're transparent which would give you the natural sound of your bass. I've found Seymour Duncan's to be chunky and punchy, Bartolini's to be warm and throaty, and EMG's to me have the most clarity with some growl. All that being said I prefer active EMG's for recording. But it also comes down to the genre, if it's jazz I'd go with the Barts every time.

I have an expensive P/J bass with Basslines on it but I prefer my Schecter C-4 with EMG pickups for all applications. I can get it to do a lot of different things. For your purposes I'd look for one of these on Ebay, used for $200-$400. Great basses!

www.glguitars.com/instruments/TributeSeries/basses/SB-2_new/index.asp

I might actually get myself a decent 4'er (Yamaha / Schechter), 5 strings are great n' all but they tend to screw with your mixes.

These sounds great.


www.musiciansfriend.com/bass/schecter-guitar-research-model-t-session-electric-bass-guitar

I'd rather stick with a Jazz OR a P. The J with the P in the neck doesn't really do a true J sound. It loses a bit of the bite.

I've been looking at a number of basses the last few weeks. I still think I'm sticking with a fender type. I know there are better ones, but 90% of all the people that come to the studio have some type of fender/squire bass. I want them to be able to come play mine comfortably if for some reason they can't play theirs.

That being said, I still haven't found a reasonably priced fender that played as well as that korean squire. i think I'll just go pick it up and be done with it.

The 2 basses i play regularly, one has EMG pickups, the other Bartolinis. Both active.
It makes quite some difference in tone, and i would agree by the characteristics mobeach gave.
For small money, the G&L are a good bet IMO.
Fenderish, well built, good price/performance ratio at a good pricing, you hardly go wrong with that. Would prefer them to Squires. I heard many who tried, like them.
Most underrated IMO is a good bridge to get the best out of the bass. Setup as good as you can, good action and fretworks does alot for the sound of the player, especially the less experienced ones coming into a studio. It might improve the performance alot if the playability of the studio bass is better than what the player is used to and he doesn't feel limited in any way. Probably more important for good recordings than the choice of the pickups if they are decent...

Any alnico 5 P-bass pickups wound to 6k ohms per coil will do. Even the cheapo imports, if they are built that way. $20 All Parts pickups sound fine. Overwind the coils and it's like adding a low pass filter with a lower bandwidth. That will create a barking bass sound.

I line the inside of the covers with copper foil to eliminate any buzz noise. A piece of black electric tape across the top of the pickups prevent buzz noises if the fingers touch the magnets. Line the cavity and under the pickguard with copper foil and ground all of it. Then the bass is silent.

I recommend adding a Fender "no-load" tone pot, that switches out the tone cap/pot when not needed, it helps retain top end clarity. Use Bourns conductive plastic 250k pots made for guitars, they are smooth, quiet and have less losses when turning them down. Get those from Mouser.

One other add on is a DPDT mini toggle switch between the volume/tone pots. I wire the pickups series/parallel. Series is the traditional P-bass sound. Parallel adds another sound, a more hi-fi "Alembic" sort of acoustic top end, very effective when needed.

If you want a mushy attack, use alder for the body. For a harder sound, more attack, use ash. I prefer rosewood fingerboards over maple unless the maple is finished in nitrocellulose laquer, rare in these days of poly finishes which will dull the tone.

Today just looked up prices for the headless 4-string Hohner The Jack with EMG licensed PU and original Steinberger System (one of the first), i had in hands again today.
They go for incredible low money. They were very affordable in the early nineties and now they might be not looking "modern" enough, but man, it is an excellent instrument, that i wouldn't hesitate to use on stage (every size) and in studio. In fact i did for years. Never had a problem with it. It sounds really good, massive but not too heavy maple body, maple neck thru, rosewood fingerboard. Simply good not only for the money. Sometimes, if i want this special warm, sometimes gnarly great sound, i leave my Bogart beast aside for recording (which is really an incredible bass worth every penny of it's high price)...
Just saying...

So I missed out on a couple nice basses the last few weeks but I got a call from an old coworker who wanted to give away his squire P bass. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth I didn't ask anything about it but just accepted it.

Now, I'd still like to put a J pickup in it, so I'm going to have to route it out and all that.

I also have a line on a cheap Fender brand J bridge pickup that I might put in it. I'd still want to change out the P pickups to something other than squire though.

Should I find some used fenders or just go with duncans or something else?