Review of MAMA pickup for Jack Casady Bass.

[spyder]

Review of a Mama replacement pickup for the Epiphone Jack Casady Bass.

I have no financial interest or affiliation to Mama.

Signal chain… Jack Casady strung with Pyramid Gold flats, Flattley Bass Fuzz, Stoneham YI-200 valve amp.

I wanted a replacement pickup for the Jack Casady bass I bought last month, it didn't have the original pickup or wiring installed. 

My new to me bass came with a very hot single coil pickup that really made the sound too aggressive for my tastes. This is because I play in a three piece acoustic style band that requires a more mellow sound. They're was nothing fundamentally wrong with the single coil, it just didn't give me the sound I was after.

After a prolonged Google search I found only one company who made a replacement pickup for the Jack Casady Bass. It was Mama pickups based in Italy.

They make the pickup in black, white or cream and it can be ordered with three choices of wiring with pots and two mounting screw colour options.

I ordered a black pickup with black mounting screws and the simple tone and volume wiring. Other wiring options include a single coil tap and an elaborate single coil, parallel, serial switching arrangement using the original impedance switch is available.

It only took a few days to arrive from Italy and I excitedly opened the well packed package.

The package contained the pickup, screws, two high quality mojo (CTS) pots and an orange tone cap. The wiring loom was not pre made so you will need wire and soldering equipment and the original input socket.

I'm good with a soldering iron so making the loom was straightforward because Mama supplied a simple and easy to use wiring diagram which is available on line. If you can't work a soldering iron then you will need a guitar tech to install the pickup for you. The original plastic pickup surround needed a small amount of modification to allow the larger screws to fit through it and widening because the pickup is slightly to big for the original pickup surround.

Installation was not hard but it did require a little work and thought. Within two hours the pickup was in, adjusted and tested.

Instantly I was impressed with the sound. It was slightly darker than the single coil but more importantly it lost nothing of the punch and power. I fiddled with the pickup height and managed to dial in the right sound for my playing style. My preferred sound, after an hour of playing at home, was the volume on full with the tone set to number 5 on the 1 - 10 dial. 

If I had to compare the sound with another bass I would say it's like a Precision with a slight hollow ring from the acoustic body of the bass. It is perfect for my three piece acoustic style band and sounds fantastic with Pyramid Gold flats installed on the bass.

Cost was around £185 for the pickup, screws, pots and tone cap.

I can only conclude that Mama has a new follower and customer. I would love to hear their Jazz pickups installed on a future bass purchase. 😄

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by spyder

[Hellzero]

Mama is making terrific good pickups and especially (quite) direct drop in replacement pickups for basses like yours, the Yamaha TRB's (excellent) or Alembic.

I'm not affiliated to them, but here is a link : https://www.mamapickups.com/it/shop/altri-bassi.html

[hooky_lowdown]

@spyder you know there's a section on this forum specifically for reviews? Check it out. 😃

[spyder]

8 minutes ago, hooky_lowdown said:

@spyder you know there's a section on this forum specifically for reviews? Check it out. 😃

Thanks.

[CameronJ]

On 31/10/2020 at 11:15, hooky_lowdown said:

@spyder you know there's a section on this forum specifically for reviews? Check it out. 😃

The review section is a sadly abandoned ghost town though. Much more chance of the post being seen here IMO, even if it is the “wrong” part of the forum.

[spyder]

12 hours ago, CameronJ said:

The review section is a sadly abandoned ghost town though. Much more chance of the post being seen here IMO, even if it is the “wrong” part of the forum.

I've duplicated it in the review section. I agree it's a ghost town.

I didn't even know we had one and I've been here for over 10 years. 

[neepheid]

Just thought I'd dredge this up to say that I'm giving some serious consideration to getting one of these pickups in my Jack Casady.  It's not well, feeding back at the slightest provocation and I'm out of warranty so Epiphone/Gibson have kicked me into the long grass to fend for myself.

 

I like the idea of using the rotary as a series/single/parallel switch - gives the switch something to do because I'd rather that than have it there as a DFA switch, or remove it and have a rubber grommet or something in there.

[neepheid]

Mind you, I'm not sure about the logic of using 250k pots with a humbucker.  I think I'll just get the pickup on its own and do my own thing with 500k pots and their excellent wiring diagram.  I'm not paying them €21 for two pots and a cap - where do you think I'm from?  How was copper wire invented?  Two Aberdonians fighting over a penny!