About HH Bongos

[djaxup]

Are the two Humbuckers the same, or are they somehow different?

My Honey Roasted PDN Bongo has two *very* different sounding Humbuckers imo, the sound is not only different because of the position. I know how the difference of neck to bridge pickup sounds, but this one is different.

The neck pickup is very hi-fi with lots of zingy high end and a solid low end boom, while the bridge side pickup is very middy in sound. I don't get why the high end sounds so "cut-off" on the bridge humbucker. There must be some kind of difference here, other than position.

It does not sound bad, mind you. I just like to understand why things work like they do.


Edit: I do have several basses with two pickups, this is the only one that has this characteristic.

 

[uOpt]

Sounds broken. My old HH made it obvious the pickups were the same.

 

[sanderhermans]

On my dual humbucker sr4 they sound the same too but the neck pickup seems to have less output so they might not be exactly the same....

 

[melvin7822]

FYI, with basses that have multiple pickups it's common for the pickups to be wound at a different DC resistance from each other. A bridge pickup will typically have a higher resistance than the neck pickup, so therefore a bridge pickup will tend to sound a little bit darker.

The strings vibrate the least near the bridge, so you would tend to get more highs and upper mids. Therefore, a higher resistance pickup would tend to compensate a little for this.

Overall, perhaps your issue could be pickup height. Perhaps your bridge pickup is too high and your neck pickup is in a good spot.

 

[Moose308]

My Bongo has both H's sounding similar. The bridge is brighter, more top end, while the neck is darker, muddier, more bass centric. But other than the slightly different voices, they are pretty close.

That said, I believe mine is pretty old, so perhaps they have changed the H construction since they built mine.

 

[djaxup]

thanks for the input so far

I've had a HS Bongo and made lots of sound files with it. The humbucker was brighter than on my new one, but I attributed that to the wood difference (basswood vs. mahogany). So melvins info might be exactly the reason why it sounds like it does.

The HH Bongo sounds fantastic, it has a mid presence that is astonishing. And it just feels so good, quality level is very high. I love this one a lot.