New Bass Pickup

[WRGKMC]

Well I finally got around to putting in the new bass pickup I bought a couple of months ago.. I had a Seymour Duncan Jazz pup in there I had added several years ago. It want a good match for the Stock Gretsch Humbucker that came with the bass. I had it wired in with a 250K humbucker and a high pass cap to add some high end but it wasn't what I needed. I found a Wilkerson Humbucker that had a humbucker jazz bass design so it was a matter of doubling the side of the route to make it fit.. While routing the new hole I found the flanges for the new pup were a little closer then the Jazz pup so I had to take a little more off on one side of the original route. It left a little gappage but its no big deal. The bass is black and you'd never see the small 1mm gap that was needed. The other side was freshly cut so it was a nearly prefect cut. I took the precaution of cutting through the finish with a sheetrock knife after I had traced the new route out so there wasn't any chipping of the finish.

 

I strung it back up and tried it through my little Marshall practice amp first. The jazz pup had a little more gain because I had to crank the neck pup down about a notch to get an even balance between the two. I have the heights exactly the same so the bridge pup gain is a tad too low. Its using a 250K pot which I had installed to reduce he gain of the jazz pup to get a balance between the two then added the additional high pass cap to finalize the balance. With this humbucker jazz pup It looks like I can use a 500K to get a good match with the bridge. I had a new pot around some place but I must have misplaced it. I spent about an hour looking for it and it just didn't turn up so I'll likely have that on my list as an item I need to but.

 

I have a few pics here. I'm not even going to try and post them because this site sucks for posting pics. I have a few links here so you can get an idea of how it looks.

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...0/IMG_1163.JPG

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...0/IMG_1166.JPG

 

I had done a full refret a couple of months ago. It made all the difference in the world for playability.

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...0/IMG_1153.JPG

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...0/IMG_1151.JPG

 

I also recorded a quick original tune this afternoon. Took me about an hour to throw this together so its nothing great I just wanted to hear how the bass sounds. You can hear how this short scale bass fits in at the bottom end of a mix. I love the thing because it doesn't need much to get a rock solid bottom without a lot of tweaks. All parts were recorded direct and the bass had no EQing or special effects added other then a limiter on the entire mix after I bounced it down to a stereo track.

 

This file should play automatically if not right click and download it. I stored it on Drop box as a wave file so it may be a bit larger then an MP3 but I wanted to preserve the sound quality. If it doesn't play let me know and I'll post an MP3

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...Bmaster%5D.wav

[DeepEnd]

Happy New Pickup Day. I'm at work and file sharing sites are blocked so I can't see your pics or listen to your tune. I'll try to remember when I get home. I know pots are cheap and plentiful but I have a stray WD 500K pot lying around. Send me a PM if you want it and I'll send it free of charge.

[WRGKMC]

Thanks, I do appreciate your kindness. I was looking on EBay the other day and I may just order a dozen for chump change. I have a couple of other guitars that need pot changes and I may as well get enough to do them all.