suprised by what i had in the parts box ......

been shopping around for pickups for the p (was never happy with the humbucker) and perhaps upgrades for the tarus (double stacked humbucker or something hotter to make the bridge single coil growl). looked at emg (replace everything in the p), barts (they have a passive with dual split coils), q tuners and carvins.

emg doesnt have a split p humbucker and double coil humbucker set up for something like a hot rod p deluxe. i could buy the p set up (with a harness), buy a jazz bass harness and buy a soapbar (with another harness) ... too much money.

i've been rooting around in the parts box to take some inventory and i came across the old soapbars from the ibanez edb model ... the body is sitting up in the rafters in my basement, unfretted, with no hardware ... when do i decide to throw that out??? i learned at a later date that these pickups were passive and it was just the onboard eq that was active.

i said, what the heck. i gotta router to fit it and if it doesnt work ... the carvins are the same size.

two problems i've had with this bass is that the dimarzio split p is too hot and boomey and, probably because of, either with a blend or independent volumes, both pickups on would cut the output level.

turns out these ibanez pickups have great output. this is probably why these pickups were only on the edb; very quiet bass. this, combined with the dimarzio split p sounds great! both on, theres no level cut and one, the other or both gives great tone. this bass sounds awesome now!

i took it back out of the bass and refaced the entire pickup so it doesnt say "ibanez" on it anymore. ha!

one of these days, i'm gonna get the body that i want for this bass from warmoth (like the bass by my signature) and i think i may use these ibanez pickups (cause rio grande's are real expensive too).

found out why the dual coil humbucker i had in there suked. i ripped it apart today. the wire out of the epoxy was 4 conductors, white, red, green and black, wrapped in a shield. this wasn't a true 4 conductor with a ground humbucker. the black wire was just snipped off under the epoxy ... junk. i'm fine that the shield was the ground, but i didnt know ... and there is no customer support or information about the company who made it (company? ... tiwan).

i'll use the parts and rebuild the pickup al la hotrod and do something with it.

i think i'm gonna go with a bartolini 9j1 for the jazz tarus.

I love it when you can dig around in the old parts bin, and find something worthwhile. Cool!

You mentioned the Carvins, MadMike. Which ones are they? I used to have a set of their stacked J humbuckers that really weren't bad. They didn't have screaming output, but for what they were, they had a nice, even tone about them. I used the neck position for my clean channel back sometime in the late 90's.

i'm looking for a bridge position (soapbar) humbucker for the p bass.

carvin SPB.

http://www.carvinguitars.com/products/single.php?product=SPB&cid=71

or

carvin H50A

http://www.carvinguitars.com/products/single.php?product=H50AS&cid=71

very little information as far as the difference and what the tone is. why is a "stacked" humbucker different? (i know ... magnets side by side lengthwize ... but.) this one doesnt have a neck / bridge identification either. either way ... they are both affordable. why i like carvin ... makes experimentation affordable. if i try both and dont like them, i will use them in something in the future ... or cragigslist / ebay them.

definitely gonna try something else. the ibanez / dimarzio pickup set up in the p now sounded great on my 2X15 rig ... not so much with the 2X10, 115, 1200W rig with all the effects.

no biggie. i got a great bass to use ... the tarus with mike's mr. ming preamp in it sounds ridiculously awesome!

still might drop a bartolini 9j1 single coil in the bridge spot in the tarus for more growl.

The thing that I recall hearing about stacked vs. side-by-side coils in humbuckers is that side-by-side tend to have more clarity than stacked do. But I suppose it depends on the application. I think that it boils down to the usual experimenting, and see what works best for you.

Experimenting with pickups is one thing ... I just can't stop thinking about the better overall tone I got with my old processor now that you been raving about your new one eric. The fact is that I've found that my current processor only sounds best with single coil jazz pickups.

hey Mike the ibanez j is 6.7k the jackson is 8.5 and the humbuker is 14.9 on both coils joined.

would anything like these work?

Again ... its about experimentation. I definitely wouldn't mind trying out both of those jacksons. Whaddaya want for them? I'm gonna redo the washburn b-10 soon so ide end up using both one bass or the other.

Ill post what im gonna do to the b-10 on another thread. I got a wild innovative idea!

HA...your next project should be wiring up 2 mr mings 1 for each pup for stereo.

or if you wire it mono, go thru a blend control but use stacked pots so the holes would be the same

I think with what I'm gonna do ... I need as much available bass top space as I can get. So yeah ... only two pot spaces.

I.m gonna need cavity space too, so ittl have to be passive (unless I go nuts with a router).

while I'm waiting for my series10 lefty neck to get fixed, I tore out all the hardware because it will be mr Ming'ed before it all goes back together...what is interesting is the p and double-J both have 14.6k ohms in them. the JJ is coil-joined at 14.67k and the p is 14.7k all by itself..should make good candidates with all that resistance hooking them up to a preamp....

unless I am wrong and they are so hot it will be insta-distortion...I'll find out when I put it back together....
if they are insta-distortion, I'll throw in the jackson-p @ 8.5k and call it a day.

the humbucker jackson I have will fit with a larger trim ring, just like I had done on my j-replacement to a HB in my lefty whte charvel if I go that way and sell or trade off the double-J.