Official Luthiers Forum!

Just working on a building a 5 string bass and am kicking around using a single Bartolini Musicman style pickup. They have several models so after my initial research I am a little confused about what the differences are. I am hoping someone may have some good feedback on this subject. Here are my questions....

1) The traditional musicman setup was one single pickup kind of between the location of the typical neck and bridge pickup? Why have some musicman's gone to 2 pickups? Is this just marketing or does a second pickup add something extra that is needed?

2) Bartolini sells a dual coal and quad coil designs with this pickup? As a player what will are the advantages to the quad coil?

3) The pickup is also sold in a bright, deep, and classic version? What should I expect from each?

The basses I use are PJ or JJ active style design. Bartolini and EMG's. I like a nice warm big sound and typically will play a PJ setup right in the middle between both pickups. I find I use my bass and treble knobs more than the pick up balance knob but will roll the balance a little into the bridge pickup from time to time (usually will rolls the bass knob up if I do so). This bass I am kicking around something different but don't want to hate myself later for doing it.

Thanks!

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Brad
Avon, OH

Have you considered addressing these questions to Bartolini?

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-donh-

Everything is a tone control!

A second pickup gives you more tone options. Good if you like to explore tones. You see a lot more single pickup Stingrays than doubles.




Dual coils are simpler to wire. Quads give you more wiring options which require more switches and head scratching trying to figure out how to wire, then more head scratching trying to figure out which switches to use for which tone.



I can't answer this with any first hand A/B/C experience, but you state you like a warm big sound. This eliminates the bright. The deep version will have slightly rolled off trebles, strong lows and low-mids. I'm not sure about the Classic, but it's likely more of an open balanced tone which might be advantageous for the B-string.

This would be a good question to post on http://www.talkbass.com

[quote="donh"]Have you considered addressing these questions to Bartolini?[/quote

I will probably give them a call but wanted some user opinions first.

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Brad
Avon, OH