I need very serious help about Upgrading Pickups and Electronics on a cheap bass?

[BasistaFunky]

Hello there guys, I wanna ask you all very serious and important questions, because I really need big help and I hope you can help me. So I’ve got an discontinued very cheap 2007 British made Vintage V800BK bass with small body and P/J pickup configuration, the only thing I wanna do is to upgrade and change the pickups and the electronics to sound completely passive and loud without using active preamp, because the original passive ones have a very low output. I have another Squier P bass which have a more large body then the Vintage and more high output, so I made a test by taking out the P/J pickups from my Squier and put them on my Vintage and the result is the same low output quality actually. So does that mean if the body is large the output is high because the wood is resonating more when is large, and if it’s small the output is too low because the wood is not resonating much when it’s small size? if it’s that should I buy a high/hot DC resistance pickups to get high passive output from bass with small body, or putting A500k instead of A250k logarithmic pots, can you tell me what I should do to solve the problem please? Thank you  

[itu]

If the height of the pickups is low, the output is low. Magnetic field gets weak really quickly. If you are using the same strings on both basses, and there's no big difference between the electronics, then the height should be your help.

 

If you have a capo, this is slightly easier, but it is not a must.

Push the strings to the fretboard at the fretboard's last fret (20 something?). Then raise the pickups until they touch the strings. Now this is too much, so depending on your playng style and personal preference, please turn the screws so much back, that the vibrating strings do not hit the pickups. Use the same amount of turns to both basses. Fine tune later on.

 

Please note, that the bridge pickup sees smaller vibrations, and can be a tad higher than the neck PU.

[Downunderwonder]

^this.

[rmorris]

It's not the body size.

[BasistaFunky]

On 27/01/2022 at 11:54, rmorris said:

It's not the body size.

Ok, what about the material, the material of the Vintage small body bass is made of several laminated wood pieces of Eastern Poplar, and the neck is maple with rosewood fingerboard 

[kodiakblair]

12 hours ago, BasistaFunky said:

Ok, what about the material,

Nothing wrong with poplar , its very similar to alder with regard to weight ,density and hardness.

 

It was the timber of choice for many Peavey models.

[neepheid]

I bought a G&L Tribute Lb-100 last month which sports a poplar body. Sounds great to me.

 

Almost all of the sound of an electric bass comes from the pickup(s). The type of body wood is a structural and where visible through a clear or translucent finish, aesthetic choice.

[lownote]

So talk to Tonerider about pups and KiOgon (on here) about a new loom.  That's what I always do in these circs but  then my envelope is stunted. 

[rmorris]

On 29/01/2022 at 11:06, BasistaFunky said:

Ok, what about the material, the material of the Vintage small body bass is made of several laminated wood pieces of Eastern Poplar, and the neck is maple with rosewood fingerboard 

 

Not really going to affect the basic volume tbh. Possible effects on tone / sustain.

Coincidentally I've been looking at some stuff on 'Tonewoods' for electric guitars and the technical analysis shows little effect although the neck has more significant effect. Greater forces involved on a bass so structural integrity might be more significant but basic volume drop isn't really a thing.

Look at the basics. If you believe you've eliminated the pickup then consider the strings and electronics ?

• Different strings can have a noticeable difference in volume depending on the detail of their construction.
• Are the electronic circuits same/equivalent : functioning correctly ? same configuration ? Same potentiometer and capacitor values ?

If so then measure them - pot' values are nominal and typically spec'd to +/-20%.

Bypass the Vol and Tone and wire direct to Output Jack.

[paul_5]

500k volume pots will give you a brighter sound, but won’t make your bass any louder. 
 

what I’ve seen done to supercharge passive pickups is to place s bar magnet underneath the pickup, so that it increases the magnetic field. 

 

 

[yorks5stringer]

Might be worth checking the jack socket and wiring too in case any reduction in sound is electrically restricted. I'm thinking possibly poor solder joints or corrosion/oxydation in the jack socket. Both are cheap and easy to fix.

[rmorris]

2 hours ago, paul_5 said:

500k volume pots will give you a brighter sound, but won’t make your bass any louder. 
 

what I’ve seen done to supercharge passive pickups is to place s bar magnet underneath the pickup, so that it increases the magnetic field. 

 

 

 

Higher Value pots' will actually increase the signal level (it's simply electronics/maths) - but yeah, not the sort of difference that I take the OP to be talking about - more significant to tonal balance and sustain. That's why I suggest bypassing all the vol/tone stuff to hear what the pickup alone is doing. In case the problem - if there is one - is related to the pots' / cap / wiring.

[Phil Starr]

If you want to fix this the only way is to work through this logically eliminating each possible cause. You've already swapped in pickups you know are working and had the same result so you now know the pups are working. Everyone is telling you it isn't the tome wood so forget that. You haven't reported checking the height so I'm assuming you haven't tried that yet? The simplest thing would be to compare the height the strings are above the pole pieces on your working Squier and your not so good Vintage. If they are similar then it's unlikely to be that but you should try moving the pups upwards anyway to see if that improves things. 

 

If that doesn't work it's probably a wiring issue or possibly a faulty component, something just wired up the wrong way or something short or open circuit.