discreet

Ha, I know. It's very rare. . Thanks again for helping me out with this, Gary.

Tried out the new pickup at rehearsal last night - works very well. Even got positive comments from the band...

Yes indeed, you really have to like a big handful of wood. Luckily, I do...

Can't find it Lozz, but got it on the Bay and the product code is 005-8396-000. I think it was around £48 all in. They're between £65 and £85 in the UK. Nice thing, I'm impressed with mine.

I'm not much of a 'jazzer' and know little about the genre, but nevertheless love Charles Mingus and Charlie Haden...

Poor Peter Stringfellow, we hardly knew him.

Buy a Harley Benton PB-50 from Thomann and put some decent flats on it. Sorted. https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_pb_50_sb_vintage_series.htm If you like P Bass necks, you'll love this. You get Thomann's 3-Year Warranty and 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee, too...

It most definitely is all in the fingers. All other tweaking, messing about and GAS just proves you have too much time on your hands.

And when looking at it too, when my Custom Shop decal arrives!

That's another option and again they're pushing the advantage of noise-reduction. This is a little different as coil-tapping with a toggle switch will give you one of the two coils, which are stacked one atop the other (I think)... the Loureiro has two coils side by side, one for each set of two strings, like a split-pickup. It's not a coil tap setup, it gives series or parallel switching which changes the sound. I'm at the very limit of my paltry knowledge about pickup electrics so I'm going to shut up now.

I would buy a bass because there was something I liked about it, move it on and buy another because there was something else I liked about that one. It took a while for me to realise the obvious truth that I'd never find one bass that had everything I needed... hence the journey. I'm fitting the bass around my current band. We play what I suppose you'd call 'rock-based' originals with some 'folk-type' and 'Americana' (whatever that is) thrown in. I'm going to use the series option (split P) for the rockier stuff and the parallel option (single P) for the big, thumpy klezma/folk-type stuff that would traditionally have had someone banging the crap out of an upright bass... all at the flick of a (very small) switch.

It seems to work really well, especially 'in your face' through an amp. I'm no top recording engineer or producer, I did the audio clips very quickly. There are a few other dual-coil 51-type options available, notably from Lindy Fralin: https://www.fralinpickups.com/product/split-51-p-bass/ It is a lot more expensive that the Loureiro version, though. And the main selling point is noise reduction - the fact you can approximate the sound of a 57-type split-pickup seems to be totally ignored. As a split pup is essentially a humbucker yes, you're going to get less noise in theory, but I've had no problems in that area even with a single coil. My bass is quite heavily shielded with copper tape though and is just as quiet with a single coil or a dual coil.

Excellent, you're welcome Dan. Thanks for the kind comments, though I'm still working on this one for tonight's rehearsal - not quite in the pocket yet.

Well I hope so... I definitely wouldn't be happy if there wasn't a P strung with flats in the house!

I don't have a bass strung with roundwounds Dan, unfortunately... but I've quickly cobbled together a couple of short recordings. You probably won't hear much difference on computer or phone speakers, but good phones or decent monitors should give some idea of what's happening. Like I said, when plugged into an amp the difference is night and day and the new pickup will definitely do the business at rehearsals and gigs. The dual-coil is definitely more mid-forward, has a tighter bottom end and fit into the mix very easily. The single-coil is clear, has a pillowy bottom end and was a bit harder to slot into the mix. Either would work fine in a decent studio. I have bumped up the level of the bass to make it easier to hear, I wouldn't normally have it this far up in the mix. But the real advantage is going to be apparent when playing live. Dual Coil.mp3 Single Coil.mp3

You can certainly get them, but as I'd already had to be 'creative' about making space under the control plate for full-size CTS pots, I thought I may be pushing my luck. I knew there was just about enough space between them for a toggle switch.

Thanks for the comment, Dan. Plugged the bass into my combo this morning and wound it up - The Loureiro is a quality bit of gear and no mistake. The previous Herrick pickup was a class act in itself, but as well as having the switching options, the Loureiro is a bigger-sounding, warmer pickup overall.

Nice! OK then, just let me know when you're ready for the mystery.* * There's actually NO mystery. You knew that already.

What about the mystery..?

I did consider it, but wanted a visible sign that the bass had been modded, to give an air of mystery and wonder. Edit - also I'm a bit banana-fingered and likely to bash a pull/push pot while playing. And I'm always pulling when I should be pushing, and vice-versa...

Modding an Already-Modded P Bass... You may or may not have seen my Modded HB PB-50 (Version 3) - if not, it's here. All well and good - I liked it a lot... the single-coil vibe is nice, but sometimes you really want that mid-forward, split-pickup dual-coil 57-type P sound as featured on every recording since the Bronze Age. Consequently, I started looking for a bog-standard 57-type P Bass. There are lots and lots and lots of them available for sale... THEN, I came across the concept of the dual-coil 51-type four-pole telebass-type pickup... with that in mind I bought this Jess Loureiro dual-coil 51-type pickup with a view to fitting a switch to give me the option of series (57-type dual) or parallel (51-type single) coil pickups, both with the fast attack you get from a one pole-piece-per-string setup... hopefully negating the need to buy another bass, cart two basses around with me and change them on stage for different songs... I also fitted a new Fender American Deluxe bridge with part-threaded saddles. Stable, well-engineered... top load or through-body options... and way too expensive in the UK, which is why I imported one from the States. Even with import duty it was still cheaper than buying one here. Many thanks to Mr Gary Mac, without whose help and assistance I'd be in hospital suffering from soldering iron burns and crying. Thanks, Gary. Sound clips: Listen on good phones or decent monitors, etc. etc... Dual Coil.mp3 Single Coil.mp3

I'm in the 'if you've got it, use it' camp. I don't have a 62 P-Bass (ohhhh) but if I did I'd use it at gigs. Who is going to know? Very few people are capable of identifying and valuing a bass guitar. If anything, people will think it's a copy. On the other hand, I certainly wouldn't let it out of my grasp for a moment, so maybe that would actually give the game away...

This reinforces my view that keys players are a localised pain in the fundament. And yes, I know good keys players are out there - I was in a band with one 40 years ago. Just haven't met one since...

True, but better a bad bass player with a good drummer than vice-versa... Total waste of a good drummer, though.