EMG J5 Set

A ver. El tema de las pastillas es un mundo. Son EMG y son activas, no se pueden comparar con ninguna de las pasivas porque son dos mundos.

Si tienes un bajo standard gama media baja y le pones estas pastillas vas a tener muchísima más definición, sonido balanceado, sin ruido .. perfectas para grabar.

Si quieres "tu sonido" de bajo, tu firma. No sé si serían las más recomendables, sobre todo si vas directo al ampli. Porque son pastillas muy neutras. Si eres un maniático de los tonos, pues pasivas, empezando por Dimarzios.

En resumen: ¿tienes el clásico jazzbass tipo squier que viene con pastillas de gama baja y lo usas para grabar tus canciones? Estas pastillas perfectas.
Eres un youtuber o bajista de sesión que quiere sonido propio, prueba otras antes.

Have put them on a Yamaha BB415 (with P+J pickups). After some woodchopping I mounted them on 5cm and 15cm from the bridge. This 1:3 distance I've calculated to be the best to get all overtones in a nice balance. I play with fingers; jazz, funk/soul and some pop; some slapping. Neck sec sounds fat and bright; very usable. Bridge sec needs some equalizing in lows. However, Br + Nk and in particular Br + 50% Nk give a great balanced sound on all strings. Br + Nk with tone full open give a nice fat+snappy sound for slapping. Compared to the original pu's the sound is deeper and much brighter, but I miss some growl. With an equalizer on 250Hz (1 octave) it is OK. The brightness tends to be too much. My strings are more than half a year old and it still needs the tone control at half. I use a Hartke HD75 with a warm sound, which works fine with the J5's. But with a bright amp+speaker it might get too much.
Installation was pretty easy, however I am not very pleased with the configuration options. See the J5-instructions at the EMG-website. There are 4 setup-configurations: (1) Passive with 2x volume; (2) Active with a balance control (not supplied; $79?) with 1x volume; (3) Active with pu-switch (not supplied) and 1x volume; (4) Active with pu-switch (not supplied) and 2x volume. At all 4 there is also a tone-control. With the supplied components only '1' can be made. When having a switch '3' and '4' are possible. '2' (which I preferred) needs an additional control (for which I asked EMG, without answer upto now). For using a switch you need some soldering. The volume controls have the most effect in de last quarter of the turning range. Not optimal. The tone-control works fine, upto a dark reggae sound.
The end result is better than what I had, but all together not ultimately satisfied because of the controls and the lack of growl. Maybe the Yamaha (wood) itself gives already a bright sound and/or the original pu's were not so bad at all. And I still want to have a balance control.