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Updating my previous post.... My Sunburst Jazz that had the Nordstrands, now has EMG pickups, and the system it came with- Vol. Blend, Treb/bass stack. This is my go-to jazz bass now. Modern day EMG pickups have made a convert out of me. DEAD quiet, killer, clean strong output, and the modular stuff makes it easy for anyone to install them. The bass is just the way I want it now. I have another jazz with an older but not ancient EMG set, and standard, non-modular EMG pots, but with a BTC, pots wired the same way- but it is not as much output. I don't know why, but it too, sounds great.
I have my jazz with the Samariums now equipped with Fender 'Super 55's- a nice Dimarzio style twin coil hum cancelling pickup. By FAR, my favorite passive pickups are the Stu Hamm Urge stacked hum cancelling. Stacked pickups, seem to have an even, pleasant, hi-fi top end, without some of the harsh top end some j pickups do. The Samarium Cobalts did, too- but lacked that bloom on the low 'E' string. They were GREAT pickups for two things- having an almost active eq'ed sounding quiet pickup, and where you are doing a house gig where that j-bloom is undesirable. Very tight in the low end. My Turquoise j stack knob, still has the Sheptone Alnico vintage winds I installed in it when I built it. Nice pickups, but sound pretty much just like everyone else's '60's wind pickups. I hear a lot of pickups, as I'm a bass repairman. The Duncan-Fralin-Nordstrand-Lollar Sheptone- Aguilar vintage pickups I've heard, are all really close tone wise. And that's the way it should be, because these winders are all replicating the same era of pickups. Yeah, they are different.. but not like going to stacks, or twin p-bass style j pickups from singles.
I'll say this- EVERY bass I hear with the Fender 60's pickups floors me, especially the P-bass set! I really want to put a set in one of my p-basses. They really are THAT good.
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