larry_emder
New member
Just thought i'd share this little experiment with yas:
Lately i've become pretty anal about instrument noise...sometimes unhealthily so! But my 5 string bass guitar had been REALLY irritating me.
It has a P pickup in the neck (which was pretty quiet of course), and a J pickup in the bridge (noisy as!). I liked the tone of the J pickup but never used it because it was so noisy
Was almost ready to pull the trigger on a stacked replacement pickup...but had a moment of inspiration after reading a couple of threads about dummy coils.
I also remembered that i had a couple of guitar single coils that gfs were selling for cheap...the only reason i bought them really.
The J bass coil measured 5.36k ohms, and one of the gfs single coils measured 5.43k ohms....pretty good match i thought. Got a knife and pried away the bar magnet underneath. Then i had to cut off the mounting tabs so it would fit in the wiring cavity.
First i tried hooking up the dummy coil in parallel with the J...mainly because i'm lazy and i didnt have to solder it in this way....sounded a lot weaker, cutting out a lot of the bass frequencies.
Got out the iron and hooked it up in series the next time. The output was the same as the pure single coil..only problem was that there was still a bit of noise.
Spent some time just moving the dummy coil around in the cavity and listening, and eventually found 'the sweet spot' where it cut the most amount of hum.
Added a bit of tape to secure it in place (also the pressure of the cavity cover seems to hold it in tight)
Results: The bass isnt totally noiseless, but i'm quite happy with the signal to noise ratio now. The J pickup is almost as quiet as the p pickup, and just as loud. And the bass is even quieter when both pickups are on (and i like this sound the best)
As far as tonal change, i really cant detect any...but them again i'm not a bass connoisseur.
Hope that info helps anyone who's interested in this stuff.
Lately i've become pretty anal about instrument noise...sometimes unhealthily so! But my 5 string bass guitar had been REALLY irritating me.
It has a P pickup in the neck (which was pretty quiet of course), and a J pickup in the bridge (noisy as!). I liked the tone of the J pickup but never used it because it was so noisy
Was almost ready to pull the trigger on a stacked replacement pickup...but had a moment of inspiration after reading a couple of threads about dummy coils.
I also remembered that i had a couple of guitar single coils that gfs were selling for cheap...the only reason i bought them really.
The J bass coil measured 5.36k ohms, and one of the gfs single coils measured 5.43k ohms....pretty good match i thought. Got a knife and pried away the bar magnet underneath. Then i had to cut off the mounting tabs so it would fit in the wiring cavity.
First i tried hooking up the dummy coil in parallel with the J...mainly because i'm lazy and i didnt have to solder it in this way....sounded a lot weaker, cutting out a lot of the bass frequencies.
Got out the iron and hooked it up in series the next time. The output was the same as the pure single coil..only problem was that there was still a bit of noise.
Spent some time just moving the dummy coil around in the cavity and listening, and eventually found 'the sweet spot' where it cut the most amount of hum.
Added a bit of tape to secure it in place (also the pressure of the cavity cover seems to hold it in tight)
Results: The bass isnt totally noiseless, but i'm quite happy with the signal to noise ratio now. The J pickup is almost as quiet as the p pickup, and just as loud. And the bass is even quieter when both pickups are on (and i like this sound the best)
As far as tonal change, i really cant detect any...but them again i'm not a bass connoisseur.
Hope that info helps anyone who's interested in this stuff.