Pickups, Preamps and outboard electronics
Something new and cool in the BBG shop is the Nordstrand Dual Blade 5 Neo pickups, which are available for the bridge, neck or as a set. What makes the DB5Neo pickups cool? It’s a dual coil blade configuration along with neodymium magnets (meaning you don’t have to worry about pole spacing,) and is optimized … Read more
You may have noticed on products such as the Seymour Duncan Antiquity Series that part of its selling point is this thing known as “scatter wind” manufacturing process. What is scatter winding? When wire is wound into coils on a pickup, the most basic definition of scatter-wound means “non-uniform.” Imagine a spool of thread that … Read more
I’ll admit up front that the title of this article is a totally unfair question for the reason it’s actually very difficult to describe in words what a pickup sounds like; it’s kind of like trying to describe what an orange tastes like (yeah, think about that one). 🙂 That being said, I’m going on … Read more
This is a step-through process of installing a Taurus TM-2 preamp. You can read more about the TM-2 here for further information to get specifications – but let’s get to what you clicked on this for – a step-through on installing it! 🙂 Before we begin we need to source the tools required to complete … Read more
When going by the appearance of a pickup alone, one can get easily confused because there are pickups that have hum-canceling technology in them even though they look like a single-coil, and there are also humbuckers that look like humbuckers but are in fact tri-coil or even quad-coil. To answer the question of what counts … Read more
Over the weekend our illustrious leader Max put this together: …and this is what it used to look like: Yes, it is completely functional, and yes there is now a battery box in the back where there wasn’t one before, but the point is this: This totally dives into what you would call “heavy modification” … Read more
A pickup can produce popping noises from human touch if the magnets or pole pieces aren’t grounded correctly, or not grounded well enough. One solution to this is to, and I’m directly quoting here, “apply conductive copper foil with conductive adhesive against the bottom of the pickups and run a new wire to ground.” That … Read more
If one were to state the generations of bass amplification, this is what they are in a nutshell: Tube-type amplification: First generation Solid-state amplification: Second generation Digital amplification: Third generation To be even more specific, tube-type was the dominant amplification method up until the 1970s, solid-state was and still is the dominant amplification type, and … Read more
Ordinarily when looking to replace a Jazz Bass preamplification control set, certain products will be described as being a true drop-in, but few actually deliver 100% on that promise. And then after dropping in the new preamp, you don’t notice too much advantage tone-wise compared to what you had. What makes John East preamps better … Read more
The Ultra Jazz Bass Pickup is a pickup that top luthiers recommend because it has the right blend of vintage tone with modern convenience. Luthiers sing the praises about the Ultra Jazz Bass Pickup because yes, it’s just that good. You want that classic Jazz Bass tone with no hum? You’ve got it with this … Read more
