Members Narcosynthesis Posted March 7, 2007 Members Share Posted March 7, 2007 Right, I know that for some reason Fender decided to play silly buggers and fit two pickups of hte same size on the mim jazz basses, contrary to the two different pickups on every other instrument they do. I am looking to possibly upgrade them, and am wandering exactly what is the story about what I need and can do to the bass for new pickups. What size of pickups are they exactly? both neck? both bridge? or something separate? and can I get a set to fit? I know there was one company that did them (of whom I can't remember hte name) but they were a bit of an unknown, do Fender or Seymour Duncan offer ones that will work?Failing that, what routing would need to be done to get a normal set to fit in the bass? David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phildogger Posted March 7, 2007 Members Share Posted March 7, 2007 Bump, I also have a MIM... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members johnnybassman Posted March 7, 2007 Members Share Posted March 7, 2007 Right, I know that for some reason Fender decided to play silly buggers and fit two pickups of hte same size on the mim jazz basses, contrary to the two different pickups on every other instrument they do. I am looking to possibly upgrade them, and am wandering exactly what is the story about what I need and can do to the bass for new pickups.What size of pickups are they exactly? both neck? both bridge? or something separate? and can I get a set to fit? I know there was one company that did them (of whom I can't remember hte name) but they were a bit of an unknown, do Fender or Seymour Duncan offer ones that will work?Failing that, what routing would need to be done to get a normal set to fit in the bass?David Yeah, thankfully they fixed that with the MIM Jazz after 2001. Both of my MIM Jazz basses are older (2000 and 1995). I replaced the stock crapola pickups with Fender '62s and Dimarzio humbuckers, respectively. I did a boat load of sanding in order to make the bridge pickup fit for both sets, but I'm happy with the results. If you don't want to go through the trouble of routing or sanding the bridge pickup rout, then perhaps a pair of humbucking neck pickups from Dimarzio? I don't know if anyone has tried that yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ender_rpm Posted March 7, 2007 Members Share Posted March 7, 2007 I put DiMarzio UJs in my MIM. I had to take the dremel to the bridge pocket to make the longer Pup fit (about 1/8 in on each end), but my bass is black, so a little sharpie and it looks fine from 2-3 feet away 2 neck pups would work fine, or I think it was Aero who made equal size pups, but they were like $180 for the pair or something. I paid $150 for the bass, I'm not putting $180 into the pups the ironic thing is that the bridge pup, which i had to do the most work on, works perfeclyt, while I'm having issues with the neck pup. I think it may be a bad pup, as it is weak and thin sounding. More experiements to come... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ZedsDead Posted March 7, 2007 Members Share Posted March 7, 2007 That is a 1989(sold in '90 First Year) MIM J. Without a doubt, it is the best sounding Jazz bass I own. (I also have an '06 American Deluxe Ash V, '99 American Standard, '05 Marcus Miller Sig and a Smith BSR4J) It has an American single coil in the bridge position, perfect fit. The neck pickup is stock. I've experimented with various J pickups on various basses. Noiseless, 1/4 Pounders, Smith 945s, etc. Each pickup sounds great but they all sound completely different. If you like the Old-School Jazz sound, you should stick with American Vintage Single Coils from Fender.... and IMHO, you only need to replace the Bridge pickup. BTW, don't put 1/4 Pounders in a Marcus Miller... it fries the preamp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Narcosynthesis Posted March 7, 2007 Author Members Share Posted March 7, 2007 That is a 1989(sold in '90 First Year) MIM J. Without a doubt, it is the best sounding Jazz bass I own. (I also have an '06 American Deluxe Ash V, '99 American Standard, '05 Marcus Miller Sig and a Smith BSR4J) It has an American single coil in the bridge position, perfect fit. The neck pickup is stock. I've experimented with various J pickups on various basses. Noiseless, 1/4 Pounders, Smith 945s, etc. Each pickup sounds great but they all sound completely different. If you like the Old-School Jazz sound, you should stick with American Vintage Single Coils from Fender.... and IMHO, you only need to replace the Bridge pickup. BTW, don't put 1/4 Pounders in a Marcus Miller... it fries the preamp Very nice Would using two of the Dimarzio neck pickups work? and any major downsides? I guess they would be wound exactly the same so would there be output differences? David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RyCLB Posted March 7, 2007 Members Share Posted March 7, 2007 FYI, both Aero and Bartolini make drop-in replacement pickups for early MIM jazzes. No routing or sanding required. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Narcosynthesis Posted March 8, 2007 Author Members Share Posted March 8, 2007 Any other ideas? David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members johnnybassman Posted March 8, 2007 Members Share Posted March 8, 2007 Any other ideas?David Not sure how much trouble this would be, or if it would even work, but perhaps you can try flipping one of the pickups around? The main problem with the old MIM pickups is that they don't hum cancel, thanks to both pickups being wound in the same direction. Perhaps if one of the pickups was turned 180 degrees, they might then hum cancel. Just a thought. I'm hella tired, so I really don't know if this is dumb or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ender_rpm Posted March 8, 2007 Members Share Posted March 8, 2007 Not sure how much trouble this would be, or if it would even work, but perhaps you can try flipping one of the pickups around?The main problem with the old MIM pickups is that they don't hum cancel, thanks to both pickups being wound in the same direction. Perhaps if one of the pickups was turned 180 degrees, they might then hum cancel. Just a thought. I'm hella tired, so I really don't know if this is dumb or not. Might work if you resoldered them so hot was ground and ground was hot. Would that even work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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