Likewise. I have a set of QP in one of my basses, which I’ve always liked, however, hearing this comparison, I actually found them quite fatiguing. The 62’s are so much warmer, almost comforting. At least to my ears.
I find the Seymour D punchier and easier to cut thru the mix, I guess if you want the old fender sound you coukd just eq it?, great comparison very useful thanks!
I would think the QPs are the way to go here. A very strong fundamental bass tone. Plus, if you ever want something close to the vintage 62, you can just roll the volume back a bit.
Classic on the ‘62, modern on the QP3. Matter of taste. For me, SQ3. They sound great pick, slap or fingerstyle. Gotta love the aggressive sound on them
Fantastic playing! I have the Fender '62 and the Duncan SPB-3. I have always liked the SPB-3 but they get a lot of hate from the online bass forums etc. The Fender '62 (similar to Duncan SPB-1) is a much more neutral/natural sound so it would be easier to apply any number of EQ or other processing to but the baked in sound of the SPB-3 is exactly the right sound for my tastes and I always preferred it in this demo. Thanks for making this!
I prefer the fenders, at least from this video they seem to be more versatile. The SDs do sound good, but the Fenders seem to "understand" the bass better
They both sound GREAT... The diff. Is so slight. It is mostly your PLAYING that is outstanding and maybee the Bass. Great demo. Thanks! That was so revealing.
In your other p-bass pickup shoot out video the Seymours came last to me but I gotta say that they shine with flatwounds, they really sang that John Paul Jones melody better than the Fenders. In a trio setting, with room for those lows I'd likely pick them. Awesome video and playing as usual !!, Thank you !!
This is outstanding and very helpful. I really thought I was going to prefer the Seymour Duncan’s but I ended up leaning more toward the Fenders in most instances. Thanks for the video.
Great comparison! I recently got a Nate Mendel p-bass and have struggled with finding a tone that isn't overly dark and heavy. The tone knob only does so much. Glad to know a simple pickup swap can make the tone more classic! Thanks for your efforts and great playing!
I have to admit...after making alot of fender and rickenbacker bass style pickups this year, I have learned that - more is not always more. 62 pups for me. Great vid
Loved this video! Thank you. The Duncan sounds fine. The girl in the front row isn’t gonna know and nor does she care. My ears though are telling me that the Fender ‘62 pickup has the edge.
Thank you so much for this demo I personally perfered the Seymour Duncan's with flatwound strings that combo sounded deeper to me as was still clear and distinguishable
Thank you so much. I am restoring a 1978 Precision and the PU seemed a little worn to me, I bought a barely used Fender 62 second hand. It's a good choice. When you take a precision one from this era you want the unmistakable Fender sound. And I agree with the other comments regarding your groove and choice of title, perfect.
I have the ‘62s in my Jazz Bass and Love them. However, in my NM PBass the SDs sound fantastic and have a thicker punch that completely typifies a great P-bass sound. I’m not swapping them out.
Your comparisons are the best on YT. Changing the Himas bridge for the classic one was a good idea, I never liked the look of modern bridges, at least on Fender basses. Bass sounds good with both pickups, perhaps the 62 is a bit more nuanced, but you can't go wrong either way.
I added a nickel hi mass bridge in my blue PB-62 with fender stock pickups and there was a noticeable enhancement to the sustain on the bass which I was concerned about on the original vintage style bass. The colour moulds well I with my blue bass and I am glad I made the change
I own both sets of pickups and like both sets of pickups. I used the Fender 62 pickups when I played in a surf instrumental band with flat wounds and the Quarter Pounders with round wounds in the guitar heavy garage band I was in to cut through the mix. From your comparison, I can hear the Fender pickups are a bit more "Burpy" and the Quarter Pounders are a bit more even with a wider tone spectrum. Almost like they are slightly compressed. So, I would choose either one depending on what type of music I was playing.
The QP is really bottom-heavy. If you're into that it's fine, but a word of warning: you can always dial in more bottom from any P bass pickup by changing your amp EQ or using the tone knob, but not every pickup is tuned to deliver good mids or high end. I prefer the vintage style pickups for this reason.
Fender should've pay you for this great comparison demo. Superb smooth playing & awesome selection of songs. Going to buy myself a Nate Mendel Pbass soon. Been looking for a good rosewood Pbass for quite some time. This MIM artist series is something else
Very nice comparison. To me the SPB-3 is clearer, and the Fender one is warmer, more growly. I do prefer the fender one in this comparison. Thank you ;-)
Really great playing! One thing I notice is the first, second and third strings when fretted are louder on the Quarter Pounders that they are on the Fender '62s. Really great comparison video. Thank you!
I thought I was the only one experiencing this as I built an MIM Precision with the fender vintages. The tone is great but the sustain and volume on smaller strings isn't there, or at least lacking to what I'm used to.
Thank you for playing bass lines that actually allow for a distinction of tone and articulation, instead of playing noisy-clattering improvised slap-lines, harmonics or tapped lines to show-off your technique. What you did was demonstrate your musicianship, which is a far more rare thing on RU-vid. In blind tests it is the case that my ears are so preconditioned by experience that I always chose and prefer the Fenders, because it seems that anything different, better or worse, is too much of a deviation from what my ears expect and want. The challengers as such are always either too much of a thing, or too little of it.
Very useful and precisely made video comparison. Although I like instruments with a more modern sound, in this particular case the Fender sounds more serious and characterful to me personally - it has enough volume especially in the mids and lows, it's more focused, and in the recording fits very precisely. The Duncan is a good alternative for experimentation, but it doesn't really differ much from the pickups that are massively put on budget Squire instruments (which also sound quite passable for the price). But still, it's all a matter of preference, so here's a good choice between one and the other world of P-bass.
One thing it would be great to hear is how the full frequency response changes when rolling off the volume a touch. The Fender PV '63 is vers this way, the better handwound late 50's even more so.
Well 😅 Thanks to this video I’ve bought Fender original pickups for my main precision bass, and they are AMAZING! Exactly what I was looking for! Classic P bass!Thanks again!
Very funny how I basically did the same mods as you besides the pickguard: put in the same new pickups, flatwounds (ancient chromes) and vintage bridge (+ the ashtray cover in my case).
Love the SD's, I have them in my 2008 P-Bas and it's the best sounding P-Bass I have heard yet !!!! I uae D'Addario Chrome Flats on ALL of my basses !!
The Duncan sounds thicker but the Fender sounds more musical to my ears. So I’d opt for the Fender and just roll in a a bit of dirt with a pedal if I needed the extra girth for something.
I had some of those Seymour Duncan pickups in a very old MiM P bass. I remember thinking how when I was first getting into modding my instruments I would find I loved the tone of a pickup by itself but would hate it when I was actually playing in a group. Ultimately I realized that the SPB-3 was the perfect example of a pickup that sounds cool solo, but when I got a Fender American P with the 62 custom shop pickup, I realized the vintage style pickup works so much better in the mix. Honestly most of the Fender stock pickups work just fine these days - no need to upgrade!
The SDs are thicker.. but a lot of that is the stuff I end up high-passing. At least for the great playlist, the fenders sit better in the mix imo. Keep in mind that fender had plenty of wire on hand and no doubt experimented with winding pickups to extremes to find the most musical configuration..
I have my secrets but I decide is time to share them, I get the best from the SD QP with the TBX tone control, it clears and open up the tone brings presence and those barky mids out, I put it on my Nate Me del and my Roger waters and also with other basses that I found dark, it’s work’s amazing on jazz basses too, that’s the not so secret-weapon of choice of Duff Mckagan on his PBass
Being a soul kind of guy i was expecting to favour the fender over the spb3 but in this clip it's quite the opposite. I like how the spb3 has less lows and more lower mids. The Fender sounds scooped compare to it. Great comparison
Great playing! Love this and the Original 62’s! They sound perfect in this recording! Do you happen to remember what you used for pickup height with them? They seem a bit lower than fender spec in this video but it’s hard to tell. They also seem to be set a bit flatter than spec too. Would love to use your height as a starting point for my set.
Thanks. I really don't remember the high setup. I always start from Fender recommendation high and then go up or down according to my ear and preference.
Great video, well done! I prefer the original Seymour Duncans that are stock on this bass. They sound a bit 'darker' than other SD QP's ive tried in other basses, but they sound great with roundwounds in a band mix and blend together beautifully with the bass drum. It's good to have options though and I'm glad you like the pickup change. The ash body on these basses is very resonant and the neck is sublime.
Awesome comparison video, thanks! I only wish you had also played some heavier music with a pick and slight tube crunch (Ampeg-style) to see how well you can abuse these pickups for more aggressive music.
Oh wow, I was expecting the '62 to sound better to me, but I didn't expect the difference to be so huge! The '62 are just on a completely different level, so much more dynamic, lively, deeper, far better growl, more balanced! Even louder, something I really didn't expect. I had a similar experience a couple of days ago when I replaced the stock ceramic pickups of my Aria RSB Standard with a more vintage AlNiCo5 pickup from an FGN bass - it really opened up and got that growl that I wanted to get! I'm not sure if this is really caused by the magnet material or the construction, but in every comparison so far, regardless of the pickup type, I preferred AlNiCo because it tended to have richer mids and a more open top-end.
My Nate Mandell has become my go to bass absolutely love it and wouldnt chance a thing, not a Foo fan just liked the spec and the neck, unfortunately i'm a man of a certain age and loved the homage to Patrick Hernandez born to be alive, great video
Wow, so most folks are going for the '62, but I wouldn't be so sure. Sure, the '62 are more defined (I hear more higher mids and less low frequencies), but the SDs have more bottom end which is really nice, especially when you go higher (kinda like shortscales, but not as pronounced). I am thinking of getting a Nate Mendel sig and after watching this video, I don't think I would be swapping out the PUs so fast..
In my eyes, comparison between Fender original '62 picks and Seymour Duncan antiquity II precision bass would be more historical correct, instead of using the SD SPB-3. Furthermore, great test.
I had to replace some crappy pickups in an Epiphone P-Bass knockoff. I went with SD due to experience with other guitars. Demo reinforced that either choice would have worked out nicely. Nicely done! If I'd have seen this before I chose, I might still be trying to decide.
I'm a Jazz Bass player mostly but I do have a couple of P basses. Maybe my ears are not P bass trained, but to me the difference in tone is so small that I don't think it even matters. I am impressed by the fact that there is no string noise, rattling, squeaking in your playing. Did you use some type of filter to get it so clean? Do you have high action?
No filters, strings are not to high, just well setup bass, and precise playing. Listen to my video from yesterday...a lot of fret noise because of bad fret work, even with nice setup.
Nice video and playing. I prefer the Fender 62. I've had a couple of sets of Seymour Duncan's and didn't care for them. They sound a little too dark to me.
62s have a better ring to them, definitely clean, but I really like that punch the sp3 has, I feel like they make the bass pop a little more. Very close, but I’d say the sp3 win by a hair.
Very nice playing and comparison .. difficult to judge .. I’d like a pickup with the QP punchy bass tones but with some of the mids and definition of the CS ‘62 😂 possible?
fender pick ups have an almost harpsichord quality which is this trebly 'gnarly sound' whereas the Seymour's have a more rounded and warm overall tone with perhaps a bit more of a focused tone.
They both sound great, and this is a fantastic video! Did you adjust any gain/volume settings between the two sets? They sound surprisingly similar in output level!
Great video, great music choices, GREAT playing. And thanks for using flats. I've been wondering about this bass, and these pickups. By nature, a vintage pickup will be more midrange oriented, less highs and lows than a modern sounding pickup. But I found the QP very balanced, VERY nice low end you could feel. It's the kind of low end that you hear through the music and supports the band. That's what I want out of a Precision and flats. By comparison, and maybe just in this recording, the Fender pu was smaller, with less low end. Mostly what was left was higher mids. Some might like that, because you can hear string noise, and other sounds, but that's not really why I would choose this setup. I would love to have heard an A/B between the two bridges.
Thank You and thank's for watching. Regarding bridges, it's an overrated story IMHO. Bass sound absolutely the same with both of them, I just do not like the look of ''massive'' bridge and prefer the vintage one.
Good to know about the bridges. It's something I've been laboring over. I played my nephews American Standard Precision on a gig once and really liked it. It was string through body, so I'm hung up on that and just another detail to muddle over when considering tone. @@ObraBass
I´ ve been thinking to upgrade my mim precision pickups for a long time now and it seems that the Fender original is the way for me to go. Damn those sounded good especially with Thomastiks. Of course i dont play that well so the result probably varies for me.... a lot :P Thank you for the video, great comparison and great playing.
