Which pickups?

[Paganbass]

In need of some advice. I'm having a 5-string custom made, and am curious as to which pickups to use. My band plays traditional metal along the lines of Accept, Saxon, etc.

I'm trying to choose between the SJ5-3S set or the SMB-5D set. Which would sound better with the music I'm playing, or is there no difference? This is my first time choosing new pickups so go easy on me, okay?

The body will be a standard Flying V and the wood the builder is using is poplar.

Thanks in advance....

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Which pickups?

Welcome to the forum.

One significant difference between your two pickup suggestions is the polepiece type and bobbin dimensions. The other important difference is that Musicman style pickups are passive, running into an active pre-amp and EQ. The SJB and controls are entirely active.

In a Poplar body, in the interests of clarity, I would choose active pickups and EQ.

For Metal, I would go with one Blackouts for Bass humbucker, mounted roughly in the "Stingray" position. I would also opt for the Blackouts 2-band EQ. It does enough and it does it well.

 

[PipeRain]

Re: Which pickups?

I'm sure other folks with more knowledge than me will chip in as Funkfingers already has, but if it was me I'd be looking at some sort of active P-J setup. Passive pickups with an active EQ will work, but to my ear nothing beats true active pickups. If you are looking for a truly traditional metal tone, it might be kinda hard to beat an SPB-4/SJB-3b setup. Run a set of Dean Markley Blue Steels over those and it'll be 1986 all over again. For a rather unique, if slightly less hot, sound but with all sorts of range try an APB-2/APB-1 setup with some Dean Markley Helix strings. For a more modern take string up some GHS Contact Core Steels over Blackouts. IN any case I prefer to run my pups at 18 volts. A lot of folks say that it isn't really necessary to run 18 volts, and it may not be, but I do it anyway because, well, I can.

Your amp will have a whole lot to do with it as well. I am sort of a heretic when it comes to tone shaping, to my ear wood is at most 3-5% of your tone. It's all about the amp, pickups and strings in that order. That said, and Ampeg SVT into a fridge or a stack of Hartke 410XL's (depending on whether you want to loosen your listeners bowels or crush their chests) will do the job well. For myself I prefer a more modern tone so I use an LH1000 into a 4.5XL.

Again, there's a gob of people with more knowledge and experience than me, but there's my opinion and it's worth exactly what you just paid for it.

 

[Paganbass]

Re: Which pickups?

Thanks guys. Duly noted. Will look into these.