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Alrighty, so I have a custom order placed for a guitar but that won't be here till early next year. In the mean time I want to build a HB-4 bass. I've looked around on line and Hoff bass pick ups run to about $120 each, I read a thread where a guy asked Seymore Duncan and they suggested he run guitar mini humbuckers and he reckoned that the vintage SD mini humbuckers sounded great. Anyone else built a HB-4 and replaced the pick ups?
Hi Dedman, I haven't built a HB-4 yet (notice how I said 'yet') but reckon traditional guitar PUP's may not work so well as they still have 6 pole pieces where some of them will not line up near the strings you want amplified. They only way around this might be to use 'Blade' style PUP's or sealed soapbar types such as EMG or Bartolini which can be quite expensive.
When I have done the John Benson PUP upgrade on the EX-5 you can have stock Chinese soapbar humbuckers if you like. They measure 102mm wide x 40 mm high which makes me think they may look a bit too wide on such a slim profiled body?
Alternatively there are plenty of cheap Ric 4003 substitute PUP's such as these on eBay ... http://www.ebay.com/bhp/rickenbacker-bass-pickup
or others that look like these...
Attachment 14234
Thanks Waz. Yea I figured it was weird that SD recommended a guitar pickup for that reason too. I figure that the cheap ebay pickups would be the same as what the kit comes with or certainly no better. I will wait and order the kit and find out what size they are, they look like they fit in a standard humbucker mounting ring, not sure if any other bass pups do. And I want chrome covers like the originals
Looks like the Ric SD's might be the only way to go if you are chasing chrome covers