Anyone else not get on with PJ basses?

[uk_lefty]

In theory a PJ bass should be everything I want. I loved my P bass, I've enjoyed every J bass I've had. I've not got on with my Warwick PJ, or the Hohner PJ before that. I've made a PJ Bitsa and put DiMarzios in it. The pups sound great individually, but together I've just never found a way to get the sound I want from PJ basses. I think it's just me, maybe my expectations are wrong or its the way I attack the strings.... Anyone else got this quandary?

[RhysP]

I've never liked the sound of the PJ configuration on any basses I've played that have had it.

Always sounds like less than the sum of its parts to me.

[uk_lefty]

Me too Rhys, when I'm playing them... Yet I love PJ players like Duff McKagan...

[Doctor J]

Quite the opposite for me, it's my favourite configuration particularly when the pickups are blended. What is it that you don't like?

 

I have found, over the years, that I tend to set up my bridge J a lot closer to the strings than the P. Most folks tend to set the pickup height visually, in my experience, so that they look about the same distance away from the strings. I go by ear, so that the bridge pickup has plentiful balls and, when blended, gives immense growl to the meat provided by the P. 

[neepheid]

It's a hard no from me. I have come to the conclusion over many years and far too many basses that bridge pickups suck, both by themselves and suck all that I enjoy about the sound of neck pickups when blended. Doesn't matter if they're single coils or humbuckers.

 

Edit: of course I'm talking about my personal preference, not meaning to sound like I'm spouting some kind of universal truth, apologies if it came across otherwise

Edited February 21, 2022 by neepheid

[RhysP]

2 minutes ago, Doctor J said:

Quite the opposite for me, it's my favourite configuration particularly when the pickups are blended. What is it that you don't like?

 

I have found, over the years, that I tend to set up my bridge J a lot closer to the strings than the P. Most folks tend to set the pickup height visually, in my experience, so that they look about the same distance away from the strings. I go by ear, so that the bridge pickup has plentiful balls and, when blended, gives immense growl to the meat provided by the P. 

Yeah, the J pickup definitely needs to be a lot closer to the strings than the P in my experience.

[Guest]

I started off loving the PJ setting on my BB, but over the course of last year a general dislike of the sound of two pickups interacting grew and grew, and now I play it purely as a P. A rather dark-sounding P.

 

Since I also have an actual P, I wonder if I would be better off replacing the BB with something with a single pickup sitting somewhere between the PJ pickups, eg stingray or kiloton. Maybe a reverse P would be different enough. But for sure me and PJs are done

[uk_lefty]

22 minutes ago, Doctor J said:

What is it that you don't like?

The blended pickup sound, just can't get what I'm searching for. Yet my double soapbar pup bass and every jazz I've had I've got on perfectly with.

[Machines]

I haven't had a PJ bass (other than a starter instrument 20 years ago), and now I have both standard and reverse setups (BB415 / Euro LX). 

 

They're quite different - but they do sound great. I never stuck with any Jazz bass for long, but these seem to do what I want a lot better. All 3 settings I find useable (mostly leaning to the P or both).

[rushbo]

My main gigging bass is a bitsa PJ, with a Squier body and an inverted Mexican Jazz bass neck.  The pups are Entwistles- my favourites. What really works on this bass is that I've fitted a three way pick up selector switch, so I can go from 70s thump to 80s twang really quickly. I'd recommend that mod to anyone who is having doubts about the PJ configuration. 

[EssentialTension]

I've had three PJ basses over the years and I have never really used the J pickup.

 

When I've had J basses, I have never really used the bridge pickup.

 

So the problem for me is the J pickup at the bridge - it's just not a sound i like or need.

[LeftyJ]

I've had several PJ basses, and didn't bond with some but loved others. Can't really put my finger on how or why to be honest, but I recon it must have something to do with experience. I've never been one to tweak knobs a lot and put a lot of effert into finding tones I like. I've always appreciated basses where I could just set the controls to neutral and max the volume and get a good base tone. If that didn't work for me, a bass was often quickly dismissed. Nowadays I do appreciate having to fine-tune the controls a little before getting a useful and good tone from a bass. 

• 1987 Ibanez SR800LE with active pickups: sounded nothing like any Fender (obviously). Totally had its own thing going on, and it wasn't for little, inexperienced me back then - but I might like it now. Very clean, somewhat bright and a fantastic slap tone (I played a lot of RATM on that bass!);
• 1990s G&L SB2 with the most loudmouthed splitcoil I've ever experienced: MFD splitcoil + singlecoil, with just two volume controls and nothing more. Could do a traditional Fender P-bass tone when I kept the volume below 80%, but would eat woofers for breakfast with the volume maxed: really loud, high-output with very strong low mids. The bridge pickup was useless on its own to me, but worked great for using it as the "tone control" of the splitcoil. Wasn't for me, I'm a everything-at-10 kind of guy and that was too much on that beast. It was beautiful and played great, and I really wanted it to work out;
• 1981 Ibanez RS924: fantastic. Did a great P-bass tone and amazing slap tones. Only sold because in the end, I found that thinner and narrower necks suit me better;
• 1983 Ibanez MC924: fantastic. Will never sell that one! It's just one month younger than me, it looks like it went through a LOT but it plays and sounds fantastic;
• 2001 Warwick Streamer LX: only bought it because it was cheap and I wanted to try one. Quickly became my favourite 4-string ever! The active reverse P + J sounds bright and hifi but the on-board 2-band EQ is voiced very nicely and offers a huge range of tones. Won't do traditional Fender tones, and the J pickup is too weak to use on its own but I've really come to appreciate what this bass can do. 

Only the MC924 and the Streamer are still mine, I sold the others. 

[Lozz196]

1 hour ago, uk_lefty said:

Me too Rhys, when I'm playing them... Yet I love PJ players like Duff McKagan...

Same here, Duff is one of my faves, love his tone/playing yet when I get that tone it just sounds “wrong”. 

[Bigwan]

I've never found a passive PJ where I liked the sound of the pickups mixed. The 2 different pickup types just don't play well together without a preamp to buffer them and stop them interacting in strange ways, IMHO, YMMV. Active PJs I have no problem with at all*.

 

*Edit - actually that's not entirely true, active basses with passive pickups sometimes blend pickups passively before the preamp. Those are pants as well...

Edited February 21, 2022 by Bigwan

[chris_b]

I've got 2 and love them.

 

IMO a PJ is always a P, but with extra tone shaping options.

 

I've got TI flats on my Mike Lull PJ5 and a piece of foam under the strings. I've been playing this bass for 10 years, as I say, I love it.

[CPCustomdubwise]

I find this a bit spooky, because I was thinking exactly the same thing yesterday....

I also love the sound of Jazz basses, I like the sound of their bridge pickup, I love my Precision and you'd therefore suppose that the combination would be pleasing, but, active or passive, I can't make the iinteraction work in a way that I like.

I was also thinking that the PJ combination is like an article of faith, like the Beatles or golden retrievers, and realising one doesn't like it is almost confessional. But I don't. I find the combination a bit anodyne.

All the caveats apply. Obviously.

Edited February 21, 2022 by CPCustomdubwise

[Al Krow]

Yamaha BB basses IMO have cracked the PJ bass format and their basses stack up really well against other basses costing several times as much. You'll find a LOT of love for them on one of the bass threads...

[RhysP]

40 minutes ago, CPCustomdubwise said:

I was also thinking that the PJ combination is like an article of faith, like the Beatles or golden retrievers, and realising one doesn't like it is almost confessional.

I don't like The Beatles or golden retrievers either. 😂

[fretmeister]

Passive blending of pickups causes insertion loss. It's a drop in signal strength that increases the closer to the middle / completely balanced position you get. 

 

The only ways I know of fixing the problem is either swapping the polarity of one of the pickups or by using an active balance control like the EMG ABC unit. The latter only works on EMG pickups, alas.

 

I've only done the EMG option

[CPCustomdubwise]

24 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Yamaha BB basses IMO have cracked the PJ bass format and their basses stack up really well against other basses costing several times as much. You'll find a LOT of love for them on one of the bass threads...

Al, I agree with every point except one....

I love Yamaha BBs...I have two...I like the p pickups and I like the J bridge pickup....but when combined they're just a bit...meh. I think Fretmeister's point above still applies.

[Guest]

This thread has goaded me into finding out what is the thing I don't like about two pickups together. Phase cancellation.

 

Two similar explanations from a TB thread:

 

From a math perspective it's just plusses and minuses cancelling each other out. One pickup hears a particular harmonic on the upswing of the wave and the other hears it on the downswing. The result is no sound for that harmonic.

 

Some of the harmonics over one pickup will be 180 degrees out of phase when over the other pickup. Combine them and those frequencies cancel. Gone. Can't be heard.

 

So when I switch from P to PJ, hoping to hear the extra bite from the bridge pickup, I just feel disappointed that some of the richness of the tone has suddenly disappeared.

[Al Krow]

26 minutes ago, CPCustomdubwise said:

Al, I agree with every point except one....

I love Yamaha BBs...I have two...I like the p pickups and I like the J bridge pickup....but when combined they're just a bit...meh. I think Fretmeister's point above still applies.

 

Cheers. It's an interesting one as many of the Yammy BB owners on the mega-thread also swear by the P+J in combination. 

 

I guess the other way of thinking about fretmeister's point, that I have heard expressed very neatly, is that whenever you blend the neck and bridge pups it can lead to a mid-scoop, which can sound great solo'd but will likely cut through less in a band mix. However, I've not particularly noticed that with my blended Yamaha PJ settings, but that's maybe because they have such kick-ass bridge Js!! (Well certainly the BB 424/5 and BB 1024/5s).

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Al Krow
Can't be doing with being beaten by an A.I. profanity filter, haha!

[shoulderpet]

3 hours ago, uk_lefty said:

In theory a PJ bass should be everything I want. I loved my P bass, I've enjoyed every J bass I've had. I've not got on with my Warwick PJ, or the Hohner PJ before that. I've made a PJ Bitsa and put DiMarzios in it. The pups sound great individually, but together I've just never found a way to get the sound I want from PJ basses. I think it's just me, maybe my expectations are wrong or its the way I attack the strings.... Anyone else got this quandary?

Im not a massive fan of P/J basses, I had a Fender Mustang that sounded good in P/J mode but all the other basses I have tried have all been Meh in P/J mode, you lost a lot of the beef in the tone as soon as you roll in that J pickup, Also things get a little bit brighter but you lose some of the snarl from the P pickup along with a good chunk of mids

[BobaMosfett]

For me the problem with PJ's seems to be the blended sound of the E and A strings versus the D and G strings. I like the former, but hate the latter.

I believe some people say that this is helped by using a reversed P-pickup, but I haven't been able to verify that for myself.

I can imagine putting the J-pickup further towards the bridge might help, but that makes the J by itself less usable.

 

My solution is to own P- and J-basses. 😀

[yorks5stringer]

I get on with my Status PJ but not with our drummer or banjo player if that helps?