Fender MIJ Ceramic Jazz and P Bass, Analysis and Review

[antigua]

Fender MIJ Ceramic P Bass
- DC Resistance: 9.28K ohms
- Measured L: 7.750H
- Calculated C: 27 (37 - 10)
- Gauss:

unloaded: dV: 9.6dB f: 9.37kHz (black)
loaded (200k & 470pF): dV: 2.0dB f: 2.28kHz (red)



A genuine Fender AlNiCo P-Bass pickup guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/7896/fender-vintage-precision-analysis-review appears to have a loaded peak of 2.7kHz 4.0dB, and with this steel poled pickup, the loaded peak is 2.28khz and 2.0dB. It's also been observed that steel pole pieces give roughly a 3dBV output boost over AlNiCo pole pieces, due to the increased permeability guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/7882/output-amplitudes-various-pickups , so as is the case with stock ceramic/steel electric guitar pickups, these can be regarded as very "hot" relative to vintage spec pickups. The DC resistance of this set is actually lower, which just goes to show how wildly misleading DC resistance is as a measure of output or tone. .

This loaded pack of 2.28kHz is almost identical to the Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound P Bass guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/7899/seymour-duncan-quarter-analysis-review at 2.36kHz, but the QP P Bass has peak dB rise of 3.7dB compared to the 2.0dB. 1.7dB difference is probably hardly audible, though. 









Fender MIJ Ceramic Jazz Bass
- DC Resistance: 5.74K ohms
- Measured L: 4.076
- Calculated C: 175 (185 - 10)
- Gauss:

unloaded: dV: 9.1dB f: 5.80kHz (black)
loaded (200k & 470pF): dV: 3.5dB f: 2.96kHz (red)





Here is a recent review of a vintage style AlNiCo Jazz Bass pickup guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/7895/fender-pure-vintage-analysis-review   This stock ceramic and steel pickup has a much lower DC resistance, 5.7k versus a 7.9k bridge, but still achieves a higher inductance and a low resonant peak, though in this case the resonant peak is only about 170Hz off, so it appears that the underwind might allow this pickup to come fairly close to a vintage AlNiCo Jazz Bass pickup. The peak dB is 3.5dBV versus 5dBV with the AlNiCo Jazz, again, hard to say that 1.5dB is readily audible.

It's hard for me to say how the sound of the ceramics differ from the AlNiCo, I've never felt the ceramic pickups sounded as different as they do with an import Stratocaster or Telecaster, but the science says here again that the AlNiCo versions are a bit brighter, so I'll assume I would here this if I were more attentive. 

The Seymour Duncan bridge Jazz Bass  guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/7898/seymour-duncan-quarter-analysis-review is significantly darker, with a loaded peak of 2.13kHz to this 2.96kHz, almost a full kilohertz of relative attenuation with 470pF load. 

[wgen]

Some other great analysis of much popular pickups. Now we can also understand the tonal response of this other pickup design for bass, pole pieces over magnet.
In your opinion, and grossly speaking, how much would the inductance raise with a ceramic P bass pickup just like the one you tested, but which measures 10.5/10.6K ohms DC resistance instead of 9.28K ohms...? I found somewhere on the web these specs for the P bass pickup mounted in the Yamaha bass I own, so I was wondering how much it would differ from a Fender MIJ ceramic P bass pickup like the one you tested.

[antigua]

Mar 10, 2017 5:02:29 GMT -5 wgen said:

Some other great analysis of much popular pickups. Now we can also understand the tonal response of this other pickup design for bass, pole pieces over magnet.
In your opinion, and grossly speaking, how much would the inductance raise with a ceramic P bass pickup just like the one you tested, but which measures 10.5/10.6K ohms DC resistance instead of 9.28K ohms...? I found somewhere on the web these specs for the P bass pickup mounted in the Yamaha bass I own, so I was wondering how much it would differ from a Fender MIJ ceramic P bass pickup like the one you tested.

It's hard to say, but I'd imagine the inductance would be around 8.3 henries. That difference in DC resistance is fairly small. I'd say for all intents and purposes the two would be equivalent, tone wise. 

There are coil calculators out there, but they make a lot of assumptions that are defied by a guitar pickup, such that the coils being perfectly round, and having an air core, where as guitars have unusual half air half metal cores. The high Q factor is suggesting to me that there is a greater proportion of air in these bass pickups compared to guitar pickups.

[wgen]

Thank you very much!