No name pups V Seymours

[squire5]

Problem:I swapped the pups on my Squier P5 Special for Seymour SJB5s.The originals were crap 4-pole jobs which were useless for the job.Next I picked up a LEGEND J bass off the Bay for £25,(neck was u/s).Put new neck on, and now find that the pups on the Jazz are at least twice as powerful as the Seymours, in a 1to1 comparison.I would have expected the SDs to be the better of the two,if not just in tone,but in power(ie volume) as well.Maybe I'm wrong,but I welcome any comments.

[The Burpster]

[quote name='squire5' post='192398' date='May 5 2008, 07:19 PM']Problem:I swapped the pups on my Squier P5 Special for Seymour SJB5s.The originals were crap 4-pole jobs which were useless for the job.Next I picked up a LEGEND J bass off the Bay for £25,(neck was u/s).Put new neck on, and now find that the pups on the Jazz are at least twice as powerful as the Seymours, in a 1to1 comparison.I would have expected the SDs to be the better of the two,if not just in tone,but in power(ie volume) as well.Maybe I'm wrong,but I welcome any comments. [/quote]

Define powerful...?

SDs are in my experience pretty hot pups. Did you rewire the rest of Squier? Change pots or other components?

[squire5]

When I say powerful I guess I mean louder.I have changed pots a couple times,but mainly just because I had to,but to my recollection the SDs never were that great.I replaced the original pups mainly because the G+B strings were weaker than the rest,but after installing the SDs the problem was pretty much the same.I copied a wiring diagram I found on the internet.Is there a meter test I could do to check them I wonder?Also,could you define Hot?

[BOD2]

You can measure the DC resistance of a pickup. You need to temporaily disconnect the pickup from the rest of the electrics in the bass then put a DC meter across the hot and ground wire from the pickup.

According to the Seymour Duncan website the DC resistance of the SJB-5 should be

Neck SJB-5 = 11.37 kOhms
Bridge SJB-5 = 20.11 kOhms

As a general guide the higher the DC resistance the higher the output, but this is only a very general guide - there's more to a pickup than DC resistance.

More info here [url="http://www.seymourduncan.com/products/basslines/cutting-edge-1/sjb5_stack_for/"]Seymour Duncan SJB-5[/url]

It's described as a "moderate output" pickup. Also, check the wiring diagram at the above link as the SJB-5 is a four conductor pickup so there is the possibility of wiring it wrongly or of wiring the two pups out of phase with each other.

[squire5]

Thanx my friend,that link provided a wealth of info.I can see now that although they're quieter,the tone is there,while in the Jazz pups,the volume is there,but the tone is nondescript.They're wired up OK so I guess I'll just have to tweak the volume control a bit.Many thanx.