I owe a huge thank you to Martin for selling me his X2N-7. I spent the early afternoon installing it in my SX, and all I can say is....WOW!!!! This thing is pure dynamite! The clarity and richness of the notes, along with the now increased responsiveness is unreal! Harmonics literally pour off the notes, and the overall tonal fidelity is exactly what I had hoped it would be! I've only had the chance to try it running through Linda's V-Tone GMX210, but I am going to fully test-drive it at full volume during band rehearsal tomorrow at my guitarists studio. I'll post pictures in the next couple of days, since I am having a hard time getting a decent picture with the flash, and I hope to get some better shots of it outside when the sun is out.

The mod was actually pretty easy to do. I simply had to carve out the pocket for the P pickup, and I took my keyhole saw to the pickguard. I then layered black electrical tape under the pickguard to cover the new gouging up. I actually did a pretty decent job, and I even managed to clean-up the original carvings a bit.

The funny thing is that now my Model J pickup for my low/clean channel sounds not nearly so powerful when compared to the X2N-7, but that's no big deal since I want more smoke from the X2N-7 anyways.

Again, THANK YOU CHOWDERBOOTS!

Good news dude.

Cool! I'm gald it got to you in time for you to put it to good use!

Switching between that pickup and anything else, the X2N will always seem so loud. It really struck me as the kind of pickup that wouldn't necessarily be used by metal bassists. It would be great for a two fingers plucking by the bridge kinda style of playing because it's so clear and so sensitive and all those harmonics drip right off. It would be great for anything, if you can keep it from pushing your preamp into distortion.

It really has been everything I could want, and it makes my old standard Model P's sound tame in comparison.

At one point, I had it running through my gear totally clean last night, and it started to feedback with no crunch at all. Whoop!

I know. The Model Ps really roar, but it's a different kind of roar from an X2N.

They sound just fantastic in single coil mode too, but I don't think thats what you're after, Eric.

But that means that he'd have to doube the size of his rig...another QSC stereo power amp, two more Behringer pres, another 2x15 and another 1x15, AT LEAST! Not to mention the fatty bundle of cables he'd be lugging around. His umbilical cord would double in size as well.

More smoke indeed.

YIKES!!!!

Now that's a lot of smoke!

Bill, what I meant was that much of the tonality of a pickup is determined by, among other things, where on the bass it sits. Like, the closer you move a pickup to the bridge, the more nasally and snappy it will sound. And the closer you move it towards the neck, the lower and deeper it will sound. I have found that my absolute favorite tones, whether clean or distorted, come from a pickup in the standard P position. But since I can't have two pickups in the exact same spot, I have to compromise. But I am curious to see what results I would get if I were to have two X2N-7's next to one another right at the P pickup area.

And by "clean mode", I meant that I took the X2N-7 and ran it without distortion just to see how well it would perform totally clean. This is because this pickup is meant for my distortion signal, and it's my Model J that I normally use for my clean signal.

I did! And I will post pictures soon.

That's not a bad idea Bill, only that I want the full output of the pickup devoted to the signal. If I divide the pickup's output in two, that would cut the gain response going to each side in half. And I'm not sure if any amount of preamping would compensate for the gain loss. Besides that, I have tried splitting pickups like this before, and I always ended up losing harmonic response pretty drastically.

I'm thinking that if I were to install two X2N7's right next to each other, with their positioning both at the P area, I could still get close to the same results tone wise. The one closer to the neck would be my low/clean channel, and the one closer to the bridge would be for my distortion channel.

all this talk about louder and I have a question.

I thought you ran it VL/VR 1 pickup per channel into your chain?
so you can use the J blend for harmonics and such.
so you now have 1 new pup, and it's separate channel output to your stuff is 3x louder/more gain?

maybe I interpret it as when I added a emgSelect to replace the OEM - tone changed and channel got louder

Let me see if I can clarify, Mike.

Each pickup circuit in my bass is wired completely isolated from the other one. The J is wired to its own volume control and output jack, and the X2N-7 is wired to its own volume control and output jack. So I have two pickups, two volume controls, and two output jacks on my bass. They are completely separate signal paths, and they never cross one another, nor are they blended or mixed together in any way, or at any time in the signal chain.

I run two cords from the bass to my amps. The cords are lashed together using cable ties.

The output from my J is fed into my Behringer V-Amp Pro Bass preamp, and then into one side of my QSC power amp. This signal is run totally clean into my 2x15 cabinet for my low/clean channel.

The output from my X2N-7 is fed into my Behringer V-Amp Guitar preamp, and then into the remaining side of my QSC power amp. The preamp is run with distortion on all the time, and this is fed into my 1x15 cabinet.

This concept was totally taken from Billy Sheehan's concept of using distortion on bass. The advantage here is that I can run a totally screaming distortion signal alongside a totally clean signal. This allows me to have the distortion tone, feedback, and harmonic content I like without cutting into the clean low end.

I do not do this for more volume. I do this because my playing is centered around running a high-gain distorted signal, and this is the best way of achieving this without sacrificing the low end.

So why not use a so-called bass distortion pedal? Or why not split the signal from one pickup into both amps. Simple. Because I've done countless experiments with both, only to find that something is always lost. Bass distortion pedals do produce a good tone, but since you are dividing the output from the pickup along two paths, you lose gain. Feedback is difficult to coax out of the amp, and harmonics do not easily leap out. The same is true when dividing the output from one pickup into two amps.

Running two separate pickups along two different signal paths allows me to utilize the full output and gain of each pickup without taking a loss at any time.

man I was one word off in my question now that I re-read it, and you tossed out a paragraph and still didnt answer the question.

about your answer... ya I knew all that since I've been around here for a while

i said:
I thought you ran it VL/VR 1 pickup per channel into your chain?

when I meant "chains" --I knew you had 2 channels/2 amps, so the question was:
you took out whatever and you put that in, and now that channel is 3x louder cause the pickup is better, just like I saw when I tossed the emg in mine.

a simple "yes it is" would have sufficed

Well, you know how I like to be short with my answers.

Sorry Mike. I misunderstood your original question. Yes, I replaced the Model P with the X2N-7, so now that channel is louder, and has more power.

I also didn't quite understand what you meant by VL/VR. Please to explain?

I think Mike means that you have the pickups wired to their own individual volume pots (i.e. volume left/volume right)?

Ah! That makes sense. Thank you, Martin!

I guess I don't really see it as left volume/right volume. More like channel 1/channel 2. Hmmm....actually....not even that. I just know that the volume closest to the bridge is for my distortion channel, and the other one is my clean signal. I've been doing it this way for so many years that I don't really think about it anymore.

ya that's what I meant left/right..

V1/V2 would have made more sense

Glad we could clear that up.

So where are our pictures, Eric?

Oh....OK.









I know, it's not pretty, but ask me if I give a rats arse. Rock and roll ain't meant to be pretty anyways.

And when I get my new Yamaha bass, I will bring it in to have all of my mods done by a professional. But for now, my SX is a dream to play, and I'm happy with it.

Honestly Martin, the only reason I spaced the saddles that far apart is because that's how they were set on the original stock bridge.

The neck is pretty much the same as a stock P neck is, since SX basses spec out almost exactly the same as Fenders do.

yep, I believe ugly basses and guitars have a substantial place in the business just like expensive, pretty ones.