The PJ Effect?

[adamg67]

I’ve had a Maruszczyk Jake for a while, and recently switched to flats which I really like. I specced it with Delano pickups, a P plus a humbucker at the bridge, and hadn’t really expected them to sound so similar. They’re not identical, but the humbucker is in series so quite fat, and the P is nearer the neck so quite fat. I’d already decided to fit a series / single / parallel switch, but thinking about it thought why not put a more classically P pickup in instead of the Delano, since I’d still basiclly have something close to the original sound with the remaining pickup.

So now I have a Nordstrand NP5 in the P position, and the Delano MC 5 FE at the bridge with parallel / series / single. The NP5 is really good, and mixing it with the Delano in parallel or single coil (always pretty similar) works really well, much much more range than I used to have. 

Looking at it now, I think I’ve just gone a long way round to getting a PJ sound? Split coil + single coil with blend seems like a really good setup to have, and I’ve never had a PJ but I guess that’s what it is? Or even without blend, you still get the nice middle position with them mixed. Very nice, yes I know technically the extra pickup pulls on the strings but I think I’d go the for the extra pickup any time now.

[Doctor J]

PJ is my absolute favourite setup, coming down on the side of the reverse P position. 

[skidder652003]

do you gig in a band?

[adamg67]

9 hours ago, skidder652003 said:

do you gig in a band?

Not for a couple of years. I'll be getting going with something again this year probably, that's one reason I'm tweaking things and making sure the sound I've got does what I want.

Edited February 10, 2020 by adamg67

[Crawford13]

I agree PJ is great! My Alpher has Nordstrand blades and it sounds incredible!

[Chris2112]

It was Victor Wooten that turned me on to that sound years ago. I loved the fatness of the split coil aided by the 'cut' of the bridge pickup. For me, the Precision pickup on it's own just doesn't work unless you're Billy Sheehan!*

It wasn't a sound that I ever really used myself, because as I found myself slapping less and less, I would tend to run based using only the bridge pickup. It wasn't until I'd had my Pedulla Pentabuzz for a couple of years that I decided to adjust the pickup heights to balance the output of the two pickups. In doing so, I ended up actually really listening to and playing with the splitcoil pickup and found it really had a cool sound of it's own. Maybe not one I would use that often, but that sort of low-mid bump of the splitcoil combined with the 'honk' of the singlecoil is really cool and adds a huge amount of beef to the sound.