All, I also posted the below on talkbass. Any thoughts? -- Jay

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All, I moved recently and had to sell my beloved PRS bass and (slightly less loved) Steinberger. I just bought a Geddy Lee Fender Jazz and it's as good as the rave reviews say. Except for one thing -- the pups.

The tone is incredible and fits my style perfectly -- clear, articulate, a nice growly overdrive, punch, tight bottom end that isn't too boomy. The problem is that the volumes have to match or it's hum/noise city. This really takes the tonal variety away since I have to keep both pups equal.

I'm looking for pup replacements that are passive and still maintain that nice growl -- any recommendations? I've been hearing quite a bit about Lindy Falins. I really want to keep the tone as close as possible and simply want to eliminate the noise (having them a bit hotter wouldn't hurt since the stocks seem a wee bit underpowered).

Also thinking about replacing the nut and the tuners -- any recommendations there? Thanks!

Jay

Don't forget our friend Villex.

http://www.villex.com/pickups.html

Lee

what's a bass?

you will need a set of humcancelling pickups in order to avoid the humming problem when the 2 volume knobs are not set equally. In general, humbuckers sound different than single coil pickups, but Nordstrands are loved by many:

http://nordstrandpickups.com

You could also check out bestbassgear.com for other brands. Another thing you may want to consider is that humbucker may have less output than single coils. To me, this is a fair tradeoff because the single coil hum drives me nuts, and I have an active preamp.