I want to buy a bass guitar. Aesthetically I like the Fender Musicmaster and Mustang. The question I have is with the Musicmaster which only has one single coil pickup. Now I can get a vintage Musicmaster for half the price of even a new Mustang. But, I play punk rock. Can anyone tell me if a single coil is just not practical. Would be be a lot to put a custom humbucker in? Or should I just save for a Mustang?
Or is there a pick up for the musicmaster equivalent to the seymour duncan hot rail stacked single coil pickup for guitars? If so would it be impractical and too costly to buy the musicmaster and customize it right off, what are those costs? Thank you.
http://www.seymourduncan.com/products/basslines/ page 2 starts 4-string stacks.
google shopping for prices, also check ebay.
I played Fender P Bass for a year or so and never had a problem with the single coil pickups. Sometimes there is a little hum, but the music will drown out that hum anyway.
There are only 2 basses I would own, Precision Bass or Jazz Bass (or a good copy of either).
The long scale neck just makes them sound better.
I'd play electric stand up bass if was good enough ;)
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I played Fender P Bass for a year or so and never had a problem with the single coil pickups. Sometimes there is a little hum, but the music will drown out that hum anyway.
one of the features of the P-Bass pup is that the halves are RWRM with respect to each other -- shouldn't be much hum. same is true of the G&L Comanche's Z-coil pups. the spatial offset between the halves is required to reduce magnetic interaction.
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These are the smallest pictures I could find of what you have to work with in the Musicmaster bass. Firstly, I lifted them from the Guitar Garage site, and give credit to Boston Guitar Repair - I hope he doesn't pull them from his photobucket, this is like a free ad man?
To answer your questions one at a time, adding to what's already been advised and said, I used to have a vintage Mustang Bass with a custom installed Gibson SB full size chrome humbucker in its dead centre. That was a thumper!
However, you can see that it would be a fair amount of trouble to get a full size humbucker into either bass guitar, with routing necessary, as well as specialized pickguard cutting or fabrication. Not advisable anyway, on a vintage instrument. And BTW, the 2 original pickups on a Mustang do NOT make it any louder than a single on the Musicmaster. They too are just hum cancelling, and maybe a bit more versatile, but no sonic boom or anything major.
On the Seymour Duncan website that was given above, I like the Quarter Pounder which is going to fit, and its description for metal, and maybe a little thrashing. :D
I didn't see a true stack in single coil size, but have other ideas...
If, and I don't know this, but if the single coil is the same size as a regular guitar single coil, with the only difference being number of poles, 4 versus 6, although they're covered up on these models, but you must have only 4 ... so if they are the same size, one of SD's Hot Rails would work because they truly do not have poles or specifically patterned individual magnetic fields, for a certain number of strings. I have read somewhere that they might be designed to drop out a little on treble, so as not to create ice pick harshness or shrillness.
Another thing I've done to expand both bass and treble, while the midranges are ample, is to install a Fender TBX, treble/bass X-pander in a quality MIJ Squier bass, which made the thing pretty loud and aggressive. That takes your 250 K ohm tone control up to a 1 meg or 1,000 K ohm, when turned up to 10, and it makes a noticeable difference. You won't have to worry about hum as the guys said, when drowned out by music, and it helps to shield the pickguard with copper or aluminum sheeting.
Finally for my part, uhhhh.... if the pickups are the same size as a guitar's, you could write to and/or try Actodyne General's Red Lace pickup - you can get one with a plain white or plain black cover which looks period authentic, and that will act like a humbucker to some appreciable degree. I have one now in my daughter's Fender Bullet Deluxe and it is actually too loud. We also have the complete Lace Huntington guitar, as shown in their Home Site video, beware it's loud, and we got one which isn't made, it is HH with 2 custom humbuckers - it may be too loud also? :?
Anyhow and with optimism, here are the Lace single coils in the line-up, and please take note of the cool, different magnetic field, which I believe would be balanced for a Bass, if the pickup fits. :wink:
http://www.lacemusic.com/electric_pickups/lace_sensor/lace_sensor_specs.php
Best of luck and bombs away! :lol:
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Thank you Blue Jay--Very helpful! Thank you everyone.
