Ceramic Pickup Noise Question

[Damagical]

I recently bought a warwick BO thumb bass from 2006. When I tap the pickups with my thumb nail there is a high pitched 'ting' coming through my amplifier, it's not loud but its noticeable. My pickups are MEC 60201-L and 60201-S

Is this normal or should I replace them?

 

[DiMarco]

Pickups can become "microphonic", if the coil inside gets enough space to vibrate along to impulses like your thumb tapping it.
As any movement of the coil influences the magnetic field, this wil generate electronic noise as a result.

Luthiers often fix this by "wax potting" the pickup if it becomes too microphonic, so that the coil wire can no longer vibrate to pretty much anything.
I do not know if anyone has ever done this with any MEC pickups but it should be possible.

For now, I would simply not tap the pickup and just keep playing As long as the bass sounds good to you, there isn't any problem.

 

[Damagical]

I got frustrated with the sound and ordered new pickups from Warwick. Worse case scenario, the new pickups do the same thing and I just sell the old ones as used pickups. If the new pickups don't do it, I'll throw the old ones in the garbage with malicious intent.