Session 2 : DiMarzio Ultra Jazz vs Sadowky pickups

Tests
- pickups DiMarzio Ultra Jazz
- pickups Sadowsky Humcancelling
- pickups Sadowsky Single Coil

All these pickups were built in my custom 1972 Fender jazz bass.
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Audio files

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My opinions
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Configuration 1 : DiMarzio Ultra Jazz pickups

I loved the slap sound that the DiMarzio Ultra Jazz gave to my maple neck 72's jazz bass ! Very clean and well defined sound but I would have liked more bite in the middle bass range. The finger sound is perhaps too clean (it's a matter of taste...). A lot of bass. Great pickups anyway !

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Configuration 2 : Sadowsky Humcancelling

I was wondering if the Sadowsky Humcancelling pickups are really DiMarzio Ultra Jazz as it is said on the DiMarzio's website. My ears didn't find any significative differences between those pickups : check yourself with the recorded audio files ! I think that the Sadowsky Humcanceling are REALLY based on the DiMarzio Ultra Jazz' design. The only difference I found is shown by the next 2 pictures :


Picture 1 : DiMarzio Ultra Jazz

Picture 2 : Sadowsky Humcancelling

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Configuration 3 : Sadowsky Single Coil

I couldn't wait to test the Sadowsky single coil pickups : for many purists, single coil pickups are the only "REAL" pickups to use in a Jazz Bass.
These pickups have a really different sound compared to the Sadowsky Humcancelling : the single coil pickups are more open with much more treble but with less bass. In fact, I wasn't very impressed by the sound of these pickups. They have much less punch in the middle frequencies and I found that the bridge pickup was especially weak : no bite and too "gentle". My bass has already naturally a lot of treble and a lot of bass (perhaps one of its defaults is a lack in middle frequencies) and these pickups didn't fit well that bass. In rehearsing situation, I had the impression that my bass sound was not as punchy and as balanced than with the Humcancelling. I had the impression that my sound was again too "gentle" and too "shy".

I got much better results with the DiMarzio J pickups that I compared with the Sadowsky Single Coil in the next session !

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