{"id":3039,"date":"2013-02-04T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/?p=3039"},"modified":"2013-02-05T11:24:11","modified_gmt":"2013-02-05T16:24:11","slug":"whats-a-mudbucker-pickup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/gear\/hardware\/whats-a-mudbucker-pickup.html","title":{"rendered":"What’s A “Mudbucker” Pickup?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Mudbucker is to the best of my knowledge not a brand but just a nickname given to a very particular type of pickup.<\/p>\n

The mudbucker originally gets its name from the early-1960s Gibson EB series; a bass usually with only one pickup, being this absolutely gigantic thing in the neck position and absolutely slammed right up against the fingerboard.<\/p>\n

This pickup to most player’s ears sounds just plain awful and very “muddy”, hence the nickname mudbucker.<\/p>\n

The mudbucker does have a distinct tonal personality. And no, this is not exactly what you would classify as “warm”, but rather, well, muddy; that’s just the way it is.<\/p>\n

What’s the problem with the mudbucker? It’s next to impossible to find one. Sure, there are custom builders who make a pickup that looks<\/em> like a mudbucker (usually with a shiny chrome dress on top), but it doesn’t sound anything like a mudbucker. <\/p>\n

Players who seek out mudbucker pickups usually do so because they’re rebuilding\/restoring an EB bass for collector’s value, and to that I say this:<\/p>\n

If you have an EB where your current mudbucker is dead, you’re better off having that dead pickup rewound than trying to seek out a replacement.<\/p>\n

Gibson to the best of my knowledge will not sell you a mudbucker even if you ask for one, so you can’t go to them to direct-order it (although I may be wrong here<\/strong>, and if I am, please feel free to post a comment and correct me). And as said above, trying to find an exact-replacement new one by a custom builder that both<\/em> looks and sounds like the original is very difficult to come by.<\/p>\n

The best (worst?) example of the EB mudbucker sound is, of course, Jack Bruce from Cream fame with his EB-3:<\/p>\n