Stingray pick up without a pre amp?

[Waddo Soqable]

I've got a spare US stingray pick up ( that was going to go into a project that I didn't do) and am wondering if this would work in a satisfactory way just wired in to a basic tone and vol set up without the pre amp, or would I be losing out on most of what it can sound like used passive? 

[Bunion]

Not sure on the pickup spec but my EBMM short scale stingray is passive and sounds great, the Tim Commerford series has passive sting rays in too and they get raving reports 

[Waddo Soqable]

Thanks for the Intel, I know they did some of the us made subs as passive, tho whether they used the same PU as the regular ones I don't know, it's tempting to think it'd be a 'parts bin' type arrangement in the factory and they'd use one type but ??? 

[Bunion]

I haven’t looked it up but a quick search in the EBMM website at te tech spec should tell you 

[Waddo Soqable]

Cheers, I'll do a bit of research then.. 👍

[ikay]

The standard US SR pickup is passive and works fine without a preamp. This video gives an interesting comparison of how it sounds passive vs active.

 

 

[Andyjr1515]

One thing just to be aware of is that, unlike most humbuckers, the coils in the Stingray pickup are wired in parallel and use the preamp for the tone and boost in output.  That's not a problem because it is a 4 conductor pickup but you will probably want to wire it up in series if you are going to go passive to get a 'normal' output level.

 

There's an interesting article in the Seymour Duncan blog here

https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/latest-updates/the-history-of-the-music-man-stingray-bass-pickup-1976-2021

 

I did a conversion to passive on @PaulS's Sterling where he asked me to also add a reverse P at the neck.  I had to wire up the coils in series to get anywhere near the P output as, in its standard parallel configuration, the Stingray/Sterling pickup had a surprisingly low resistance.

 

[Andyjr1515]

1 minute ago, Andyjr1515 said:

One thing just to be aware of is that, unlike most humbuckers, the coils in the Stingray pickup are wired in parallel and use the preamp for the tone and boost in output.  That's not a problem because it is a 4 conductor pickup but you will probably want to wire it up in series if you are going to go passive to get a 'normal' output level.

 

There's an interesting article in the Seymour Duncan blog here

https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/latest-updates/the-history-of-the-music-man-stingray-bass-pickup-1976-2021

 

I did a conversion to passive on @PaulS's Sterling where he asked me to also add a reverse P at the neck.  I had to wire up the coils in series to get anywhere near the P output as, in its standard parallel configuration, the Stingray/Sterling pickup had a surprisingly low resistance.  Sounded great in passive, by the way

 

 

[Waddo Soqable]

Thanks guys food for thought, I may be using it as the only PU on the project or maybe more likely in with something else at the neck end, not sure as yet. Obviously the SR will be in the position you'd expect pretty much! 

[Waddycall]

I have a Nordstrand MM4 in between the two single coils on my fretless Jazz. It sounds great and has decent output. I can’t remember if it’s series or parallel though.