shoulderpet

Ok, I have them fitted, on opening the package I was pleased to see a nice attractive cardboard KA branded box, makes a nice change from the cheap looking plastic boxes that some pickups are packaged in, the wires are cloth covered and waxed which makes fitting them a little easier, one gripe though is that the wire connecting the two pickup halves is way longer than it needs to be, the space under the control plate on my Jaguar bass seems to be quite cramped partly because the person who soldered the SPB-1 eons ago seems to have left the wires coming off the pots a bit on the long side, I am using the twisting the wires together and covering with electrical tape method of wiring up the pickups so I am not about to mess with what is already soldered. On fitting them I noticed that they seem to use the same colour coding as the Wilkinsons , I wonder if they are made for KA by the same company that makes Wilkinson pickups. Once wired up they sounded good, I was surprised that they were not as bright as I had heard, I would say they are probably similarly bright as the Wilkinson pickup but to be fair I have heard a couple of accounts of people being surprised at the Wilkinsons being fairly bright , also worth noting is that my bass amp is at my drummers place at the moment so my impressions are based on the tone through the (admittedly fairly crappy sounding) Amplug and my impression hearing it through a proper bass amp would likely be different. One thing for sure is this is definitely louder than the Wilkinson pickup, whereas the Wilkinson sounded low-ish output and sounded like it lost a lot with the Quarter pounder J pickup rolled off this sounds like the Quarter pounder J pickup is adding a little extra sizzle rather than dominating the tone, this pickup is not as loud as the Entwistle though and that pickup made the Quarter pounder J sound like a vintage output pickup. So all in all the KA adds a little extra muscle to the tone compared to the Wilkinson but its kind of like comparing different photographers taking a photo of the same thing at the same time, one of the photos may jump out more aggressively , one may be more muted but they are basically different flavours of the same thing. Another thing learnt is that there are some surprising gems to be found and also that cost is not necessarily any kind of indicator of quality when it comes to pickups, out of the pickups I have tried during this mass swap-out (Duncan SPB-1, Entwistle PBXN, Wilkinson Alnico and Ceramic, KA Hot Ceramic) the only one that I actually disliked the tone of was the Seymour Duncan SPB-1, the cheaper pickups were surprisingly good even the cheapest Wilkinson ceramic was at least fairly good and the other pickups all compare favourably to pickups from the more expensive brands.

Got the Boss TU-01 clip on tuner and it is the best tuner clip on or not that I have had, much better than there stomp box tuner

Ok, curiousity finally got the better of me, the Wilkinson pickup sounds good however the bass tone I tend to go for is about as subtle as using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut so I figured something more aggressive was probably in order, having had a look at the available options I have gone for a Kent Armstrong Hot P Ceramic pickup, I recall reading some positive feedback on this pickup from @Paul S and it looks like the pickup is geared towards the bright and growly end of the spectrum so I though I would give it a try

Hope you manage to get the SPB-1 sorted, the Entwistle is a fine pickup though I had to take mine out as due to the size of the pickup I could not get it low enough, I also have the Fender Hi Mass bridge, I fitted it to my Squier Jaguar and on that bass it seemed to brighten up the tone a little but as your bass has a maple fretboard it is probably accoustically a lot brighter than my Squier so that would explain why it made no difference

Cool, what is their inherent tone like, I have seen them described as dark but the way that Dimarzio describe them makes them sound very modern, kind of brings to mid the Bartolini MK-1 pickups in the Ibanez SR range, I had an Ibanez with those pickups in and they had that kind of dark sounding but modern and smooth characteristic to them

Its an ugly headstock but the rest of the bass looks so nice that I could overlook the ugly headstock

Ok so I may be keeping the pickup in for a while at least for a bit longer, not being able to play music with bandmates due to the covid thing I was playing along to some music and the Wilkinson alnico pickup just has this gorgeous punch and fatness in the low mids,very Mike Mills from REM kind of P bass sound. I think going with some more aggressive pickups may sacrifice some of this quality so im going to give it some thoughy first. Anyone who is considering P pickups the Alnico Wilkinson WPB pickup is well worth consideration, don't be fooled by the price it is a decent pickup.

Juse purely out of curiousity has anyone played the Dimarzio split P pick (the rails one not the model P) ? Wondering what that pickup sounds like, always thought it was meant to be quite a smooth deep sounding pickup then I heard the bassist from Maxx Explosion using one and defintely doesnt sound that way but who knows what processing his bass goes through on the way to the amp

Thanks, can I wire both pickups direct to jack? Also I take it I would have to move the groud wire to run from the jack ?

Thanks, something close to Frank Bello from Anthrax would be great, I have a P/J bass so I have potentially 2 pickups I can swap out if needed

This guy has an awesome p bass tone, seems to be using a Model P, is this representative of their inherent tone? Sounds very bright

Oh and the Wilkinson I am using now is the alnico version, I actually brought the ceramic one as well as i figured it was cheap enough to give both a try, the ceramic version is more middy but I wouldn't say it was brighter in terms of treble response, there is less bass and more mids but not in the highest mid frequencies, the ceramic version kind of reminds me of a bridge pickup, I have decided the alnico one is the better pickup, the ceramic one sounds good combined with the bridge pickup in my bass but was lacking on its own. Looking at the ceramic pickup it is clear that more care was put into the alnico version, the alnico has magnetised pole pieces and looks like pretty much any decent after market pickup in terms of construction whilst the ceramic has bar magnets on the back of the pickup, the ceramic also just generally looks cheaper with the pole pieces looking like a cast alloy than a solid metal, the ceramic is also sealed so the covers are part of the pickup. All this being said my Rumble 500 is at my drummers place so I am basing all this on what I am hearing through my Amplug

Just googled it and it is apparently 25mm deep, the one I just took out is massive so this doesn't surprise me

Just googled the V4 damn that's a beautiful looking bass

That's very handy to know, I was thinking about the Steve Harris SPB-4 so it sounds like that is a solid choice, wasn't sure as I hated the Spb1

Anyway just wanted to say that the Wilkinson pickup sounds great, a good well rounded P bass tone, i am not sure yet if I will keep or if my desire for an aggressive tone will win out but for anyone looking for a decent classic sounding P bass pickup with reasonable brightness this is a winner and at around £25 it is a bargain at a fraction of the price of most aftermarket pickups, thing is I would like to keep that classic tone but just add a bit of bite and growl to it, the model p sounds good but I don't know if it will be bright enough. Anyway the possibilities I will be considering are as follows, not in any particular order 1. Model P Duncan Quarter Pounder Duncan SPB-4 Steve Harris P pickup Kent armstrong Hot Vintage - not sure if this will be what im after but i am intrigued Keep the Wilkinson in and swap the J pickup for a Model J or similar

Yeah just seemed strange that the pickups are out of phase with the white wire connected to the white and the black wire connected to the black

Ok have put the Wilkinson pickups in, that was a slightly odd experience, using the twisting the wires to the wires soldered to the pots method I connected white to white wire and black to black wire, pickups sounded fine solo but both on full gave a massive drop in low end, so hearing this and knowing something was obviously wrong I reversed the wires, black to white and white to black and success low end is back , how odd

I dont boil mine but I do something similar, rather than putting a pan on the boil and leaving it to boil I stick them in a tub in some boiling water for about 10 mins (give them 5 mins then put the kettle on again pour out the water and top up with the freshly boiled water and give another 5 mins) seems to brighten them back up and as it doesnt stress the strings as much as putting them in a pan of boiling water on a hob. That being said nothing beats a fresh set of strings, I love that new string sound.

thank you for the offer but I am about to take one out of my bass as the pickup route is not deep enough,thanks anyway

Interesting, I have the Quarter pounder J pickup in a P/J bass and really like what it does for the sound and from what I remember I quite like the Quarter pounder P , in fact it is the only SD P pickup I like, that being said if it were not for the Entwhistles size quirks I would definitely be keeping it

Ok thanks, that is good to know and puts Dimarzios back in the picture for me

Yeah I like the idea of the Model P and the aggressive tone with mid focus but don't they have like 4 sets of wires coming off them? I'm a dead simple kind of person when it comes to pickups and even more simple when it comes to fitting them, I want a black wire and a white wire and a set of screws for the pickup

Thanks for the suggestion, I am proper ham fisted though so not sure I would trust myself doing so. I think I'm gonna go for one of the ceramic Wilkinson pickups for the time being and when I get the cash I will go with a quarter pounder. I wonder if it would be worth getting some neodymium magnets to stick to the underside or on top of the pickup poles?

No worries , you will get first dibs