Show Us Your Non- Warwick Bass Then!

If i can't find a Warwick Stryker, this will have to do!
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I managed to get an NS Custom! Hand built in England by Neil Shoemark in 2005, but I can find very little info about it. Apparently he made Fenderbirds for a while.
It was very dusty and unplayed for years, i've polished and waxed it.
The electronics are nothing to write home about, and the pickups (5 string models?!) are in the wrong place. I have no idea what pickups these are, but the hardware seems to be eBay stuff.
 
Or a pair of passive MJS pickups in there- I'm very pleased with the EMG size 40 soapbars Mike 'Smitty' Smythe made for my 1985 Aria Pro II ZZB Deluxe- a split single coil in the neck position and humbucker at the bridge to replace the original ones-

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1985 Aria Pro II ZZB Deluxe- tuned to Eb for Trower and Saxon tunes-

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Thinking about replacing the stock pickups with EMG active 40P split coil soapbars. Given that you can choose the stock treble side forward (reverse P) or bass coil forward, does anyone have recommendations for dual reverse, reverse/standard, or standard/standard? I admit I love the sound of the Steinberger dual active P standard configuration I recently installed in my Spirit.
 
The stock pickups on Aria basses are great, don't know why you would replace these.
 
Gnermo said:
The stock pickups on Aria basses are great, don't know why you would replace these.
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True that the neck pickup sounds fine in the sense that it sounds like a typical good bass- well rounded mid-range tonally- like a Fender Precision without the boominess. However that's it- for me the bridge pickup sounds thin and with no rich overtones. It doesn't even provide meaningful contribution, rather detracts, when both pickups are selected.

But the neck pickup sounds fine- but it's a one trick pony in that regard, unlike the HBCS pickups in my Steinberger which can go from mid-range punchy to take your head off razor toppy.

Regarding your experience with Aria basses, you may have been exposed only to those on the high-end models like the SBC-1000. In that case I would be 100% agreed.

Mind you that my Aria Pro II's were of a good build made in Japan and had Gotoh tuners and good hardware but the pickups weren't exceptional. For example the ones on my mine used full length bobbins half-filled for each bar magnet. Also, as Mike Smyth of MJS pickups put it, passive split-P styles arrangements in soapbars generally don't work as well as the more separated coils in a true P-style. But as EMG has proven, active split-coils in a closer soapbar-style configuration can and do work well, albeit with a different timbre and attack than an. traditional split-coil.

Nevertheless, I'm not jumping into any changes at the moment. But those EMG HB's do sound phenomenal-
 
A split-coil in the bridge position almost always sounds like that, it's just the nature of the beast.
and the neck pickup is just another split coil, so technically it's just a P bass then. :)
I've owned an Aria TSB400, same pickup config and same 'issues'. Still a wonderful bass.
 
I have no problem with a P-bass or its sound like some folks do - just not looking for it in a sexy explorer style body-
 
.... and here's my current fretless setup, a Harley Benton B-550FL. I bought this two years ago as my first fretless and absolutely love the whole 'no frets' thing. Can hardly wait for my Streamer fretless to arrive in twelve weeks. Anyway, as with the HB in the post above this, the build quality and general fit and finish is top notch. Balance is spot-on and the neck is sublime. I find the pickups too harsh though and will eventually replace them with something else.

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