TBJ-5F Pick up choice.

[METAL Rulez 4ever]

I maybe purchasing the TBJ-5F Fretless Thunderbird Bass which does not come with pick ups. I am looking at a Wilkinson MWJB5 set.

Does anyone know about these pick ups please if they are any good and if so, what is the most i would pay please ?

[Simon Barden]

I have no experience of those particular pickups, but I have got some Wilkinson guitar pickups. Their sound quality is variable. Certainly better than most stock pickups fitted to Asian-built guitars, they generally fall into two types; the cheaper types fitted with ceramic magnets, and the more expensive ones fitted with Alnico magnets. The MWJB5 set falls into the former category, the WJB5 set into the latter. My experience of the ceramic magnet guitar pickups is that they have a very hot output; I can't get a clean sound at all from my Blackstar HT-5 amp's clean channel using a Vintage V100 AFD Les Paul style guitar that has Wilkinson pickups without turning the volume control down to about 3. But I also have a Vintage Lemon Drop Les Paul that has Wilkinson Alnico pickups, and that sounds very nice with a much lower output.

So I would expect a similar story with the bass pickups. I expect the MWJB pickups will have quite a hot output, but the sound may be lacking in the finer detail as a result, whilst the WJB pickups will be more vintage in output and tone and probably better suited to the subtleties of a fretless bass. With a vintage tone, you can always use a boost pedal to make the signal hotter if necessary. But all this is guesswork on my part as I certainly haven't heard them.

The Alnico models certainly cost more. I the UK, I can currently get a set of the MWJB5s for £28.90 (A$48) and the WJB5s for £44.90 (A$75), though the MWJB5 price might be a Black Friday offer. But for me, it is certainly cheaper to buy a set than the pickups individually. I can't easily comment on what's available to you and the prices

I'd say that the Alnico models would compare well with the Tonerider Alnico JB pickups - although Tonerider don't make a 5 string set.

It's difficult to tell exactly what they are using as the model names are slightly different, but the Vintage brand are associated with Trev Wilkinson and use Wilkinson hardware and pickups. I have a friend who bought a Vintage Jazz-style bass and was very pleased with the sounds he got, and they look to be fitted with the Alnico pickups.

[Zandit75]

Just a suggestion for you Metal, this welcome section is for new members to introduce themselves. If you have questions about certain pickups, or other parts of your build, it is better to search for the appropriate section and ask the question there.
This will keep the welcome section uncluttered and will ensure your question doesn't get overlooked.
This particular question could be asked in the Wiring Pickups Subsection, or perhaps the General Guitar Discussion subsection.
If you were to ask one of the moderators, they could move this thread to a better subsection for you, instead of asking the question again.

[METAL Rulez 4ever]

Thank you for all your info Simon, very much appreciated. I will give them a miss then as they are the ceramic pick ups.

Zandit...I do apologize, i am still getting used to this forum. I will keep searching here for the appropriate posts.

[Zandit75]

Thank you for all your info Simon, very much appreciated. I will give them a miss then as they are the ceramic pick ups.

Zandit...I do apologize, i am still getting used to this forum. I will keep searching here for the appropriate posts.

No need to apologize, bud, that's what we are all here for. Not just the guitar help, but forum assistance also!
I was an administrator on another website that uses the same program as this one. That was only a small site, with no where near the traffic this one gets, and that was enough to keep me busy. I can't imagine how much work these guys do to keep the site clean and pointing in the right direction!

[wazkelly]

Hi Naim, when Adam posted this beast the other night I commented that there were no 5 string J Bass PUP options and he mentioned that they could be ordered at the checkout stage. Just tried that and the PBG shop has only Tonerider & Entwistles that are for standard 4 stringed Bass PUP's.

There are plenty of Chinese eBay cheapies out there that will probably be replicas of what you already have in the Red J Bass 5 String Fretless or you could spend up to almost AUD $300 for a set of known brands such as EMG, Bartolini, etc.

If you are happy with the sound of the ones you have already got buy another set and try them out for a while before diving in and spending plenty.

[METAL Rulez 4ever]

Thank you Zandit for your kind words and understanding. I am learning along the way as i go...with this site as well as building basses, awesome experience.

Waz, there is a limited selection of 5 string JB style pick ups, some cheap some expensive...here is the link.

http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_f...p2045573.m1684

[adam]

Hey guys, in my haste to get these up on the site, I linked to the 4 string JB pickups by mistake... which Brendan quickly pointed out. I removed those links.

I will ask our supplier to send some of the JB 5 string pups from the JB-5 kits, but they could take some time to get here.

I still like the idea of offering kits without pups as a lot of builders do request to take them out of our kits.

I did not realise there was such a dearth of 5 string JB Pickups.

[wokkaboy]

so Ads have you compared the width of the 4 string pups to the 5 string pup cavities ? I've seen some 4 string bass kits with pups similar to the width of a 5 string pup

[Simon Barden]

There is a fairly good selection of 5-string JB pickups, but not a big selection at the lower-cost end. So if you go the no-supplied pickup route, you've really got to be prepared to spend a reasonable sum on a set from the premium brands. Even in the UK, I can find nothing between a set of Wilkinson pickups (here the alnico ones are around £42/A$70) and set of Fender or Dimarzio pickups starting at around £110 (A$183), with a lot in the £150-£200 (A$250-A$335) area. There are a few very cheap sets on eBay and Amazon for around £15 (A$25), but these will be similar to the ones that are available with the kits.

The UK designed/Asian built pickup companies that I know of (Tonerider, Warman and Irongear) currently provide a very limited selection of bass pickups (Irongear does none), and only Warman does a 5-string bass pickup, but of a Musicman style.