Recommendations needed for SG Bass pup replacement.

[Lungimsam]

First I must say that this bass is soooooooooo much easier on the hands than my pbasses. Complete ease of access all the way up the neck. A dream to play. It also sits flatter against my body without tipping back a little like the Pbasses due to their body contours. This means less arching of my left wrist = comfortable. Play your SG exclusively for a few days and then throw on the pbass and you will see what I mean. One thing I have to say is that the design on this thing for playability is unbelieveable.

 

However; she doesn't sound as powerful and punchy and clear as my pbasses. She sounds a little rubber band-like and dead. No kaboom. Yes the strings are new. Pups work fine as well as the electronics. I have experimented to death with pup heights to no avail. I get the same dullness out of the Fender and Peavy amps I have used it on. So I don;t think it is an amp issue. Besides, my Pbasses sound great on anything. So I think it is the SG.

 

What can I use to replace these pups since their shapes are so specific to this bass? Any ideas?

Would changing the cap/resistor (not sure what it is) do it?

How bout different volume or tone pots?

 

Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks, y'all!

[uwe h]

"However, she doesn't sound as powerful and punchy and clear as my pbasses. She sounds a little rubber band-like and dead. No kaboom."

 

I'm afraid there is no free lunch and it won't work. Getting your SG Bass to sound like a P bass I mean.

 

- The P Bass is long scale which gives you more present harmonics, the SG bass is short scale, the strings at much lower tension. Tune your P Bass down to a tension as low as your SG and you'll see what I mean and that is even discounting the then still different scale lengths. That is the price you pay for a more comfortably playing bass.

 

- The P Bass is bolt-on neck. Ideal for quick attack and similar tone decay. The SG is set neck, sacrificing attack for sustain. You'll never get the SG as snappy as the P.

 

- The SG is all maho - a warm sounding wood, but not very focused -, your P maple neck and ash body (or alder), all brighter and more focused sounding woods, but at the expense of warmth.

 

- The P Bass has its pup in the middle, the sweet spot (for Fenderistas at least). The SG has it just behind the neck which gives (and is intended to give) a bassier, more indirect and fuller (at the expense of clarity) sound.

 

In other words: Your SG sounds exactly like it is supposed to sound, i.e. not at all like your Fender. Variety in life is a great thing, don't suppress it. The SG will never cut through the music like the Fender does, but rather stay in the overall musical picture. That has its advantages too as your playing can be a lot more busy and melodic on it without stepping on anybody's musical toes. But if root note eights is what your music needs most of the time, then an SG is plainly the wrong choice because it cannot deliver that with the same punch and clarity as a Fender P.

 

Uwe

 

PS: BTW, the TB Plus neckbucker on your SG is a state of the art modern rock pup, ballsy and representing all frequencies evenly. If you would put it on your P and replace the split coil, you'd be surprised how your P would roar to the point of being nasty. Your sound issues have nothing to do with the pup (which, albeit in a different look, finds use on almost all modern Gibson basses such as TBird, Les Paul Bass, Explorer Ltd Run, Grabber II etc).

[herb nice]

I've heard good things about the Dimarzio Model One, but I still have the stock TB pickup in my SG.

 

There's a thread with a bunch of soundclips on talkbass that you might find useful:

 

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f38/stock-gibson-sg-vs-dimarzio-model-one-mudbuckers-soundclips-712002/

 

I shape my tone with a diamond compressor and some light sansamp overdrive, the overdrive really makes the SG sound like how you think it should sound. Still nothing like a fender, but less nasal and a lot more chomp.

[Clay Smith]

Could this be part of the problem?

 

http://forum.gibson.com/index.php?/topic/62378-gibson-sg-bass-bridge-fix-video/

[Gaolee]

I've heard good things about the Dimarzio Model One, but I still have the stock TB pickup in my SG.

 

There's a thread with a bunch of soundclips on talkbass that you might find useful:

 

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f38/stock-gibson-sg-vs-dimarzio-model-one-mudbuckers-soundclips-712002/

 

I shape my tone with a diamond compressor and some light sansamp overdrive, the overdrive really makes the SG sound like how you think it should sound. Still nothing like a fender, but less nasal and a lot more chomp.

Dimarzio has been making those for just about ever, and they are great. My EB-2 had one when I got it in 1983, and it is great sounding.

[uwe h]

You guys recommending the DM Model 1 as a replacement have an outdated reference in your ears: The original humbucker ("mudbucker") of the sixties and seventies EBs. That pup was overwound and roared in the bass and low mid frequencies drowning out anything else. The DM Model 1 was conceived to combat all that: It had less output and was generally well-behaved and depicted all frequencies rather evenly. Or boringly. If the original mudbucker was a wild gorilla, the Model 1 was an office type guy with glasses. But in the mid to late seventies that was seen as a modern improvement.

 

Move on three decades. The neck pup of an SG only looks like a mudbucker of old. Underneath there is a modern TB Plus lurking. The pup Gibson has been using on 90% of its basses in various shapes and forms since the late eighties. This pup comes in soapbar, guitar size humbucker and mudbucker look. It is a strong, forceful rock pup with a bit of overdrive to it. Compared to

the mudbucker gorilla it is a muscular surfer type, more assertive than the DM Model 1 in every respect.

 

And there lies the root of the problem of your advice: you are telling someone who doesn't find the body-built surfer assertive enough to go and replace it with the office type with specs!

 

The Model 1's popularity stems from two things: 1. It sounded clean when clean bass sounds became en vogue. 2. It is to my knowledge still the only replacement pup offered for the vintage look chrome mudbuckers. But by today's standards, the little guy is overrated. And no one in his right mind will buy a short-scale maho vintage EB today and want it to sound "clean". There are hundreds of other basses than can do that better if that is what you crave for.

 

Which still leaves us with the question of the young man how to radically alter the sound of his SG Bass. I am not advocating this but if you absolutely insist I tell you a story: I have a sixties Epiphone Newport which to all intents and purposes should sound like an old Gibson EB-0 with which it shartes everything except the shape. Except that mine never did. It sounded much clearer and with more attack. It also looked a little weird as there were no screwas coming out of the cover for the individual strings. One day, my inqusitive side took over and I dismantled the cover ... And look and behold: the pre-owner had replaced the original mudbucker with a replacement SD Tele bass single coil, sqeezed in slanted and secured by copious amounts of foam! I left it as is, non-original or not, I have enough mudbucker basses. But that one lonely Newport sounds indeed closer to a Fender than to a mudbucker EB.

 

So if you are intent on doing it - and young men tend to be - I just provided you with a crime plan!

[Lungimsam]

Thanks for the advice guys. I will check out that link posted.

 

I actually thought of putting an extra Lindy Fralin '51 Pbass pup I have under the mudbucker cover. But that is a last resort experiment. I am not ready to mod my axe "Jack Casady-style" yet. I read him say he bought his Guild Starfires and had them carved up by Alembic guy and had all sorts of things changed. Worked great for him! Had awesome tone. My favorite bassist. But I'm not at the routing point yet.

 

I may try new resistor or tone pot before going for pup replacement as that will be pretty drastic if it needs routing.

 

The SG style basses are helralded as powerful sounding, but mine just is dead as a doorknob. I love the looks and playability of it so I will keep it.

 

Any advice great, so keep it coming. I need all the help I can get.

[Gaolee]

Great information Uwe. Thanks. The DiMarzio One in my EB-2 is indeed weaker than the pickup in my P-Bass. Because the EB-2 is hollow, it has a completely different sound from any plank, so the comparison may not be valid, but whether it is stronger or weaker, it sounds fantastic. It does not look anything like the original mudbucker, though. It has a black plastic face which is very soft and has been gouged up pretty well. It was like that when I got the bass, and I have no idea what happened to it to make it look like it does. Fortunately, whatever happened to the pickup didn't happen to the bass as well.

[herb nice]

The neck PU has clanky character, but I think that dimarzio sounds fatter in the clips. Really need to hear it with the band to see if the fattening's fighting the mix though. I'll stick with my stock neck PU for now.

 

I have more of an issue with the bridge PU in my SG bass. Out of the box, it is really dominated by the highs, nothing going on at the bottom. When I blend it in, it sucks as much goodness out of the neck PU as it gives back in definition and top end.

 

Tried adjusting poles and height, got it pretty balanced. Still pretty useless though.

 

I got to thinking that pickup placement's as important as anything in regards to tone, and decided to try rotating the bridge pickup 180 to get the poles closer to the neck. It definitely sounds darker, and the blended tone is much more warm and musical imho.

 

I had also thought about cleaning up the blended tone suck by running the pickups in series, but I haven't resorted to the soldering iron yet as this may be a stupid idea.

 

I do still want to play with the capacitor- I will probaly replace the tone knob with a decade/varitone/tonestyler type gizmo. I think a lowpass filter would sound and sit better with the band than the stock shelf. Only one way to know for sure...

[bassballs]

The neck PU has clanky character, but I think that dimarzio sounds fatter in the clips. Really need to hear it with the band to see if the fattening's fighting the mix though. I'll stick with my stock neck PU for now.

 

I have more of an issue with the bridge PU in my SG bass. Out of the box, it is really dominated by the highs, nothing going on at the bottom. When I blend it in, it sucks as much goodness out of the neck PU as it gives back in definition and top end.

 

Tried adjusting poles and height, got it pretty balanced. Still pretty useless though.

 

I got to thinking that pickup placement's as important as anything in regards to tone, and decided to try rotating the bridge pickup 180 to get the poles closer to the neck. It definitely sounds darker, and the blended tone is much more warm and musical imho.

 

I had also thought about cleaning up the blended tone suck by running the pickups in series, but I haven't resorted to the soldering iron yet as this may be a stupid idea.

 

I do still want to play with the capacitor- I will probaly replace the tone knob with a decade/varitone/tonestyler type gizmo. I think a lowpass filter would sound and sit better with the band than the stock shelf. Only one way to know for sure...

 

hmmm I have been playing semi pro for 35 years now, funk in the 80. on a Music Man, punk-jazz in the 90. on a Tobias Growler + the Music Man now I play Rock and use a Gibson SG Standard Bass, I have none of the issues with the tone of the stock pickups described in this thread.

 

I really love the tone I get from the Gibson SG. Mine has a output almost as loud as my Active Music Man so changing beetween them is no problem. I can make it sound just like Jack Bruce on Cream Live Records = massive overdrive tube sound using the bridge pickup, or like a mudbucker (i know how this is supposed to sound I also have a 1968 EB-2) Deep bass using the neck pickup.

 

I found out that to make the SG sound right I never have the tone on 10 It is very clanky and trebly, I have the tone on 3 and the bridge pickup on 10 and neck pickup on 9 when I want to overdrive my amp and visa versa if I want the Fat sound.

 

I still have my Music man and Tobias but it is a year ago I played them. I even played a Funk gig on the gibson using the bridge pickup setting and a Auto Wah instead of the slapping routine I did on the Music Man, sounded very funky and I got a lot of compliments after for the great sound.

 

I think it all comes down to settings to get the right sound and not changing pickups to get it to sound different from what it is intended to sound like.

 

For amp I use a Gallien krueger 800 RB and a Mesa-Boogie 1516BE cap = 1 15# + 1 10# + 2 6# and a tweeter (disconnected) I bi-amp it. I use a Tech 21 VT bass pedal to emulate the Old School Tube Sound I like these days.

 

strings is LaBella Deep Talking Bass flats.

 

just my 2 cent

[herb nice]

Some more info on rotating the bridge pickup, as this is an easy, free, useful and totally reversible mod- all you need is a little philips screwdriver:

 

I first tried flipping the entire plastic ring and pickup so the poles were closer to the neck. This small change produced a very pleasing, mellower tone, but still shiny and defined. Almost magic. I found myself blending much more of the bridge sound in than before, and that the two played a lot nicer with each other. I played it like this for a few hours and I found myself playing with both volumes around 8, having a very nice top end and still a nice bottom. I really like this sound, there's a sparkle to it.

 

 

After that mod, I noticed that the bridge pickup was leaning towards the bridge, with the poles at the peak closest to the strings. So, science in mind, I tried one more configuration:

 

I rotated the plastic ring back to it's original position (pickup leaning towards neck) and rotated the pickup itself within the ring. So, the pickup is now leaning towards the neck like before, but with the poles nearest the neck. This brings the poles another bit closer to the neck, but brings the pickup body closer to the strings. The result is that it mellows the bridge tone a little more. A little darker, fuller. I played like this for a few hours in this configuration, and I found myself turning the bridge volume up to 10, and the neck down to 8 or so- I had never liked that sound before. It's very pleasant and useable and sits well with the neck. This is how I am running currently. It's not quite as sparkly as the first mod, which I will revisit some day as my flats age.

 

 

I dunno about "intended to sound like" so much. I don't care about some tech's intentions as much as my own- especially when looks have priority over function. For me it's an instrument, not a museum piece. I have a quality of tone in my head. The faded SG bass feels great and sounds very close to what I want, and with a little tweaking I know I can get into the sweet spot. :)

[herb nice]

* Probably no one cares, but I spent 5 minutes and reverted to the first mod I mentioned above (the entire bridge pickup and plastic housing 180 degrees to stock). This gets the poles closer to the strings, and still on the neck side. Somehow this sounds amazing compared to the stock and other mod position that I tried. The phaseyness of the blend is really pleasant and musical.

 

I also did a quick test and the output of my sg bass is MUCH lower than my other passive basses, at any setting (neck/bridge/both/blended). I didn't try the active gener as that's no contest. Even the sweet supershortscale bass I use for couch practise and mod experiments is twice as loud, according to the waveforms.

 

Enough thinking, time to get back to playing...

[Lungimsam]

Thanks Herb,

 

Never thought of reversing the pup. I may try that to see how it sounds. Thanks for the tip!

[MrNylon]

I'm not complaining by any means, because I've never had a EB or SG Gibson series bass as lively and with so much versatility of sound, as the SG Std. I have now. The more I play with the standard strings, the more I like them also.

[csonator]

Just wanted to let you know that I followed your suggestion and it makes a huge difference. Before, I had the choice between muddy (neck pickup only) or very metallic, wiry (bridge only) or a bad mixture of both... Now the bridge pickup sounds like a dream, nice level of definition but not too hard and I really like the combined sound as well. Wonder why Gibson is not building it this way, the sound is so much better...

 

* Probably no one cares, but I spent 5 minutes and reverted to the first mod I mentioned above (the entire bridge pickup and plastic housing 180 degrees to stock). This gets the poles closer to the strings, and still on the neck side. Somehow this sounds amazing compared to the stock and other mod position that I tried. The phaseyness of the blend is really pleasant and musical.

 

I also did a quick test and the output of my sg bass is MUCH lower than my other passive basses, at any setting (neck/bridge/both/blended). I didn't try the active gener as that's no contest. Even the sweet supershortscale bass I use for couch practise and mod experiments is twice as loud, according to the waveforms.

 

Enough thinking, time to get back to playing...