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Or are you comparing a normal Jazz bass with 2 J pickups?
I read on forums people saying that the J neck pickup sounds like a P which made me choose a J as my first bass.
Didn't take me long to find out that they sound totally different to each other.
I can think of only one instance when this can be true. The P and short J models in the old Seymour Duncan Active EQ series bass pickups have identical innards under different plastic covers.
The “bridge” pickup in a RIC 4000, 4001 or 4003 supplies the clank. The neck pickup brings a deeper, plummy component. (THINK: Macca on Come Together or Graham Gouldman in the middle section of I’m Not In Love.) It is the combination of the two that makes the sound.
The RIC neck position pickup is much closer to the end of the fingerboard than its equivalent on any Fender except the Coronado Bass or the mk2 Telecaster Bass. Thus, even an OCP Overkill in the neck position of a Jazz Bass would not sound the same.
is there any particular reasons to go for one over the other? I am playing pick mainly for 90's alternative rock
If anyone has had experience with them, what would a badass bridge change/ improve on a JB? Is it mainly the resonance? are intonation height more fine tune-able?
cheers
The main idea is increase sustain. Sometimes, this happens at the expense of tone. More than once, I have changed the basic, bent steel bridge on a Fender style bass only to eventually revert to stock because it sounded better.
The BadAss has the advantage that its saddles can not be pulled out of alignment by vigorous playing.
I have found the current Fender Hi Mass (BadAss lookalike) bridge a mixed blessing. It sounds fine on an Am Std Dimension Bass. It detracted from the sound when I tried it on Squier VM series instruments.
IMO, the pickup is only one factor in the overall sound of an electric bass guitar. Part of what distinguishes a RIC 4000-series bass is its construction method and materials. No screwed-on neck bass quite matches it, even when played using the exact same technique.
Given that, circa Moving Pictures, Rush fans would write to Geddy Lee to compliment the recorded sound of his Rickenbacker bass when several of the songs were actually his (then) recently acquired Fender Jazz Bass, a Jazz Bass is probably the best place to start when attempting to mimic RIC sounds from a non-RIC instrument.
My own choice for such an experiment would be a PJ bass. I would want the fuller tone of a P pickup to combine with the Overkill clank. That's just me. You have to do what is right for you.
Back on topic.
Judging by the still image, the way that the strings pass relative to the polepieces indicates that pickups in the G&L Tribute JB-2 are equal length. Choose replacements by measuring the pickup covers. EMG makes an equal length pair.
If buying a G&L bass guitar, my inclination would be to choose a model with their dual coil pickups and mode switching. One pickup might be enough.
How does that work with your Overkill then, what neck pickup would you use with it - a normal J neck?
Or is the Overkill just its own thing inspired by Ric but not meant to actually give the sound of one?
The Overkill is slightly under-wound compared to a Ric pickup as Ash designed it to work in the bridge position of a Jazz (there is a good diagram of the relative position of pickups on bass guitars that shows the Ric bridge rout is some distance from the Jazz bridge rout, so he compensated in the design), while retaining the J neck pickup. To my ear it is a pretty convincing Ric-a-like sound. This should not be a surprise, given @Funkfingers comments about the difficulty fans had spotting the difference between Geddy Lee's Jazz and Ric sound.
You can add an Overkill to the bridge as well. Again very much sonically in Ric territory.
There are other things you can do with the Overkill as well. We have a customer in the USA who has put an Overkill in a custom bass with an active pre-amp. Ric all the way, but more so, is his view. He is comparing it to one of the new 5 string active Rics - sadly our budget does not extend to a company 5 string Ric to do the comparison ourselves...
We will be exploring the Overkill/pre-amp combination ourselves in the next few months. The same customer has asked for a humbucking Overkill for a new custom bass, which we will build before the end of the year. This will also play through an active pre-amp. It will be just a little higher resistance than the original Stingray humbucker design. We can only guess what THAT is going to sound like. :-)
It might be worth involving @ICBM and @prowla in this Discussion to get some opinions of what constitutes a RIC bass sound.
Re: The Geddy Lee RIC > Fender transition, some people listen with their eyes. Even the Moving Pictures inner sleeve photograph of Lee holding his black Jazz Bass did not get the message across to some listeners.
@4string How practical would it be to adapt the Overkill to fit the split coils Precision Bass pickup format? Maybe, with its coils connected in the Seymour Duncan “Power Boost” fashion to behave like a single coil.
What about a p bass body with a Ric Laredo/Cheyenne style pickups in the Ric position ...
Overkill as a P bass pick up is a P Bass pickup, surely. In series... Seems like to would be different just to fit an existing rout. More interesting might be the neo magnet P bass proto type that will get built when we have sometime. It will be going in a knackered old p bass partscaster and I expect it to kick the front end of my amp nice and hard.
If we are playing fantasy pick up combos - Over kill | neo p bass | Overkill - sort of Stu Hamm ish with 57 ways switching. Strings not likely to sustain much in the mag field... :-)