MUDBUCKERS - help with a future project of mine!

[Arzi]

Hi fellow lowenders and enyone able to assist

I'm planning a half-scratch with following specs:

Alder body (body blank)
Maple jazz bass neck (38mm nut) with maple fretboard
'51 P bass inspired look
Pickups: one authentic type single coil or combination with the mudbucker or similar type of pickup.
Strings will be flatwound or semi-flats
Bridge Wilkinson P/J bridge with brass saddles
Tuners Wilkinson cloverleafs

Now - about the pickups... At first I was gonna go with the single coil hand wound by a local luthier. Then I took a look at Fenders '70:s Telebasses and found THE MUDBUCKER... The beast seems to be either loved or hated and what I found - often paired with a brighter PU near the bridge.

Question 1:
Can the Mudbucker and single coil ( positioned near the original post) be succesfully combined to get the best of both? With the semi flats and single coil to get the 50's-60's sound and with the mudbucker/wide range humbucker some of the 70's ZZ top etc.

2: I read that when using both at the same time - the single coil muffles the MB and cuts it's power. Something to do with MB's huge resistanse vs single's low output or something. Can this be overrided with other kind of wiring or maybe by using a preamp?

3: Any useful opinions on the Mudbucker are also appreciated. The basic idea was to get the THUD when needed and the softness of the single. Tonal range with combining the two - this maybe with the preamp?

4: am I insane to think this type of combo could work? I know B Sheehan uses the MB with split coil P PU.

The looks are also one factor on this so some of the MB alternatives are also Fender wide range HB or DiMarzio dp120. Any experience with Aryec's mudbucker would also be useful info.

Thanks in advance

Arzi

[dingobass]

Maybe having them on seperate volume controls might solve the problem?

[Arzi]

Hi

I just aquired a used but not abused DiMarzio DP120 for the build so with a resistance some over 10k it should be more compatible with a '51 type of single coil. Not to mention tonal qualities. Plus it has the 4 coil tap if wanting to split or rewire somehow.

Will continue to seek out info on the subject.

[WeirdBits]

Do you want to stick with a two knob layout like the '51?

If you go for a 3 knob option as volume, volume, tone you can do parallel/series/split switching on the DP120 with push/pulls on the two volumes, and have a tone push/pull to switch between normal tone control and bass cut or maybe use a Fender TBX style tone control. Lots of possibilities.

From what I've read, the DP120 is a little different internally to the original sidewinder coil layout in a Mudbucker, but has many of the same pros and cons sound-wise. Different sound, but more manageable resistance/load in conventional layouts.

[Arzi]

Hi Weirdbits

Still trying to decide what I wanna do with the electronics. At the moment I've been offered a 2010 Fender '52 P reissue's original PU cheap - basically unused. Don't know if this would be a good pair with the dp120 electronics wise. The sound would be as is - vintage.

The DP should be less muddy and way more diverse than old MB. We'll see...