Pickup upgrade

[EssexBuccaneer]

Hi guys, 

 

I recently bought a Harley Benton 5 string stingray-like thingy and I’d like to change out the pup for something a bit better. Most likely a Seymour Duncan or suchlike.

 

My question is will the new pickup be held back by the existing (presumably budget) wiring/pots etc? i.e will the sound quality be held back by the weakest part of the electrical gubbins? 

[itu]

HB has as bad pots as an MM Stingray. You can use them. If you want a pre, choices are numerous.

[shoulderpet]

3 hours ago, EssexBuccaneer said:

Hi guys, 

 

I recently bought a Harley Benton 5 string stingray-like thingy and I’d like to change out the pup for something a bit better. Most likely a Seymour Duncan or suchlike.

 

My question is will the new pickup be held back by the existing (presumably budget) wiring/pots etc? i.e will the sound quality be held back by the weakest part of the electrical gubbins? 

The pots being cheap will have very little impact on the tone, you can upgrade them and they may last longer but I very much doubt you will notice an improvement in tone, the HB stingray clone is wired in parallel, you could add a series/parallel for more tonal options (assuming the stock pickup is a 4 wire pickup) a Duncan pickup will probably improve the tone a little.

[orangepeelneil]

Hi ,Is the bass something like the Harley Benton MB-5 SB Deluxe Series?

 

As mentioned the passive electronics whilst not the best quality, may have little impact on the tone.

 

I had a OLP passive (Vol/VolTone) Stingray copy years ago, only really came to life when I fitted a SR type active preamp (even with the original pickup) .

Many consider the classic Stingray tone a combination of the large pole pickup (and placement) and the active preamp. If you need any advice on this I can help with some cheap options to try out. 

 

Would be interesting to see what kind of pickup is in the HB (possibly ceramic?)  and measure the impedance of it. 

Lots of options for updating the pickup, depending on your budget ..... but trying a cheap active preamp may improve the tone 

 

FYI, your passive wiring will be something like this if it's Vol/Vol/ Tone 

[itu]

37 minutes ago, orangepeelneil said:

Would be interesting to see what kind of pickup is in the HB (possibly ceramic?)  and measure the impedance of it.

And how do you measure impedance of a pickup? At which frequency? I have done it once but the system costs an arm and a leg.

You have to be talking about DC resistance.

[bloke_zero]

A big part of the original stingray sound (given the pickup position near the bridge being quite bright) was the preamp.

 

I'm sorry this is in German but it's the clearest explanation I could find (with diagrams!): https://andyszeugs.wordpress.com/musicman-stingray-classic-preamp/

 

There are several options for preamps.

 

 

[Delberthot]

I was looking to do something similar in the past and this is the preamp I was going to use:

 

https://retrovibe.co.uk/product/retrovibe-stinger-77-classic-mm-stingray-bass-eq-pre-amp-2-band-pre-eb-circuit/

 

Assuming that there is enough room in the control cavity for the preamp and a battery