I've re-installed the new full set of pickups that Mica sent to me a couple of years ago when my '77 Series bridge pickup died. She and Ron thought I should just replace pickups both for consistency. I've found another '77 bridge unit since then to replace the dead one, so I've been playing it with a full stock vintage pickup set installed. It sounds great, and nothing wrong with the sound. But, I just heard a past live recording on a cell phone captured back when the new pickup set Mica sent to me was in the bass, and I gotta say that the new units are pretty amazing in the mix. Definitely aggressive and rocking-sounding. So of course I put them back in, and wow, lot's of detail and power coming from the modern set. I wanted to stay true to the '77 vibe with the older original pickups, but I'm happier with the bigger and beefier sound of the newer set. There's a lot more information coming out of the newer set, to my ears. My current custom build will have Fatboys, and I bet they are pretty close to what I'm hearing from these modern Series pickups.
Fat is where it's at... and that's all I got to say about that. 8)
Well, thanks to you I'm getting Fatboys. Fat is good.
My current build has Fatboys as well. Need to find some Fatboys that are MXY56 size.
The Series I/II magnet will not fit in an MXY mold. I did have a small number of _almost_ FatBoy MXY pickups I offered a while ago - not sure if I still have any of those kicking around, but I will check. That's the best you're gonna do, plus I'm not going to make those anymore because the coils really are too big for the molds.
Ah. If I really wanted to use the Fatboys I could route the pickup cavity to accommodate the AXY56 pickups.
I forgot to write that my 77 bass had the bridge pickup replaced in the mid 80's. I haven't noticed a considerable difference in tone besides the placement. I wonder when the changes you noticed were made in the design.
I have a pair of early 70s caramel pickups and those sound very different to my ear. They are low impedance (resistance is about 700 ohms) and they have a deepness with clarity to them that I don't find in the newer ones. However, they are unreliable, so I am happily playing with a new set and the tone gets great reviews from everyone. At some point, I'd like to get some new low impedance pickups.
I've never heard an Alembic pickup I didn't like and have them in several non-Alembic basses.