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EMG Pickup question...please?


mlwarriner

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Posted

so in case you missed it, i now own what used to be Rowka's JAF. very nice bass, extremely well built. EMG pups and pre. i got it on thursday, but was busy over the weekend, and was unable to play it until tonight.

 

plugged in, tuned c-g-c-f just like i did with the stingray, and went into the first song. something didn't sound right, but my guitarist is a tuning freak, so i knew he was on. after the first song, i went back to the tuner and retuned. c-g-c-f, just like normal. still wasn't right. went to the guitarist's tuner (mine's a korg rack tuner, his is a boss pedal tuner). both tuners agreed that i was right on, but it still wasn't right. i had to play everything up one fret to sound right. went back to the tuner and tuned c#-g#-c#-f#, and now all is well...

 

 

anybody here ever have this experience with EMG pups, or have any idea why this might be happening????

 

 

please and thanks!

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Posted

EMG pickups, regardless of how much they color your tone (or don't), will not bend the pitch a half step. No pickup can do that, that would require something like a digital whammy.

 

One way or another, your guitarist either somehow got tuned a half step sharp or something just flat out weird is going on with your tuning. This sounds like a mechanical anomaly to me, and not an electronic one.

 

Are both tuners calibrated to A 440, or at least to the same A or Bb?

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i can't speak for his tuner, but AFAIK, mine is calibrated correctly. it worked just fine last week with my stingray. it worked fine for 2 years with my ibanez. it didn't work with the JAF... :confused:

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Posted

 

Originally posted by fretless

hmmm , so if you tune to C and he tunes to C you are flat , sorry I don't know and it sounds odd to me , did you do a setup / new strings etc. ?

 

 

no new strings, no setup. just pulled off the e and replaced it with a b. then tuned c-g-c-f. did the same thing with my stingray and it worked fine. some reason, the JAF it didn't...

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I don't mean to imply the bass needs a setup either , I just can't understand how strings tuned on the same tuner can be 1/2 step off .:confused: though I have experienced an active pickup with boosted eq not reading very well , did the tuner act normal or was it all jumpy and missing the note ?

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Posted

Originally posted by fretless

I don't mean to imply the bass needs a setup either , I just can't understand how strings tuned on the same tuner can be 1/2 step off .
:confused:
though I have experienced an active pickup with boosted eq not reading very well , did the tuner act normal or was it all jumpy and missing the note ?

 

it may very well need a setup, but i doubt it. it came from Rowka, and I think he's pretty particular about his basses.

 

i don't understand it either. the tuner was working just like it always does. maybe just a very very small amount more jumpiness, but nothing i was concerned with. and the guitarist's boss tuner was fine. not jumpy or "missing" at all.

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