EMG J Set

I really like them! I ve been using emg?s since the late 80`s! I have them on most of my basses! They soung great, are reliable and quiet, versatile in any situation especially in the studio! I find it hard to understand that people find them sterile and too clean sounding? If you have a decent bass and you can play your instrument I think they sound great! Ask any top pro! I even put these in myself! No soldering!
Highly unusual that this time I had two pickups the same lenght in the box! Thomann immediately replaced them! The second time I was a volume pot short! Again Thomann replaced them and told me to take what I needed from the both! I did this and returned the rest! Annoying, but great and friendly service from Thomann! It must be an unusual fault with emg Quality control? Anyway my Fender jazz bass sounds splendid!! Many thanks Thomann!

Update Nov 2019; Nearly 3 years on with the same battery! I?ve got the same old daddario rounds on and the bass with the emgs sounds great! I roll the tone almost off and the bass sounds very vintage indeed with either the front pu rolled off a little, or both pups on! I?m really loving the sound now! Just thought I?d share this!

EMG's - Always have been and always will be the best for Rock or Metal. Sound superb, awesome clarity and punch and unbelievably easy to install.
Fitted these to a Warwick Corvette Std - Got so much more depth across the complete frequency range from good low end depth and bass to a really punchy top end funk just using tone control when used flat through Mesa D800+ however, hit the overdrive -MXR sub octave fuzz- and can sound as fuzzed up as Chris Wolstenhome or as dirty and hard core as Robert Trujillo.
These are great pickups and well worth investing in.
Once you've used EMG's you won't want to use anything else.

I've used EMG J pickups in a number of basses over the years ranging from Fender Jazz, to Spectors, to Warwicks.

I find them very consistent in tone. They give you a great, balanced tone that is deep, has plenty of punch and a crisp high-end. Don't let people's descriptions of these pickups as being 'cold', or 'sterile', put you off. I believe they actually allow the true tone of your instrument to come through and people are just not used to hearing this with most of the standard passive pickups that are more commonly used. In my view all you actually need with these is a passive tone control, so that you can roll off highs for a more vintage sound, when required. The flat open tone straight out of the box is just great. Powerful, punchy, articulate and no noise, or hum in any pickup blend setting. Completely cure the traditional single coil hum problem. I find them great for recording in a digital environment, where computer equipment can cause noise in more traditional passive single-coil pickups.

The quick-connect solderless EMG system is great and make installing these a doddle. All the components are high quality too.

Highly recommended!

I replaced the old pick ups on my jazz bass with these EMG's
The product is well packaged and the instructions are clear and provide good diagrams to show you various options by which to wire up your pick up circuit.

I choose the standard jazz circuit, which is basically two volume pots (active) and one tone control (passive). With a solder-less system it is very quick and easy to install. With a bit of careful positioning of the wires A fender jazz bass actually has enough room in the wiring compartment to accommodate the 9volt battery required to power these active pickups.

Once the strings were replaced, the bass sounds great. Very nice tone and presence on the neck and bridge with a crisp high end.

Please note: The tone and volume pot shafts are not the star grip ones, so those with an older model bass will have to change the control knobs to ones with a grub screw.

All in all a great set of pick ups.

I'm a long time user of EMG pickups as I owned at least 50 old Warwicks and they usually had EMG jazz pickups.
Their new version is solderless, this means you don't need to solder them to the preamp IF the preamp is from the same company and isn't too old.
The sound... well, not easy to describe as of course it's heavily affected by the instrument you put them on. But they're clean sounding, edgy pickups very good for slap, tapping and also pick playing. I would NOT recommend them for fretless, though, where they sound a bit too sterile and you might want AlNiCo5 pickups (smoother, warmer, darker).