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. 😄