olp stingray style bass upgrades

hi bass guys

The bass player in my band has bought an olp stingray style bass.
as i have some knowledge of electronics he has asked me to upgrade the pickups etc.

i have a few questions-

what are the stock pups like? is it worth changing them? my bass player is keen to put an sd smb4a pickup in there any thoughts on this pup? does it need an active eq? i hear the olp can sound pretty flat.


the one he has is a single pickup model with 3 knobs does the body come routed for another pickup in the neck position? i may put an active circuit in there and the space would be handy for a battery?

can anyone reccommend any active circuits they have used on similar projects? ive seen the seymore duncan one any others out there? (i see lots on ebay by brands such as artec and belcat are these any good?

thanks for any help guys my bass knowledge is prettty pittiful.:oops:

The pickup he wants is good. If I recall corectly, it can be used w/o active preamp, but it benefits from having such, so it's better with the preamp.

There should be enough space for preamp, but not for the battery, I'm afraid. Remember that some preamps are 2-band and some 3-band, which means they need 4 potentiometers total.

Body is not routed for another P/U. The only bass - again, if I recall correctly! - of this kind that had another space for PU routed was MM Cutlass - there was a space for single pickup in the neck position.

The best active circuits commonly used are made by Aguilar, but they're expensive. Artec produces budget electronics - from my experience they could be poorly manufactured in terms of being solid, yet they're suprisingly effective.

That's all I can tell trying to answer your questions. If I said something silly, someone will - hopefully - correct me. :D
Good luck.

Most of the stuff I've heard about the OLPs has been good as the old adage goes if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Supposedly most of the 'ray tone comes from the Pre and not the Pick up. So if the bass is passive adding another pup ain't gonna make it sound anymore like the real thing if thats what he is after.

If you are wanting the work I have a few layouts of a clone of the original Pre-ernie Ball Pre-amp for Vero board I am hoping to do for my self soon if you want them.

There was also a guy on Talkbass selling PCBs for the same circuit.

The OLP only looked like a real StingRay, it never sounded like one. You would need a different pickup and a preamp that sounds reasonably close. Does your bassist really want to spend that kind of money on a bass that retailed for about $250 and was closed out for well less than that? He'll never get his investment back.

The current Sterling by MusicMan import line gives you the real MM sound at about $600.

The OLP only looked like a real StingRay, it never sounded like one. You would need a different pickup and a preamp that sounds reasonably close. Does your bassist really want to spend that kind of money on a bass that retailed for about $250 and was closed out for well less than that? He'll never get his investment back.

The current Sterling by MusicMan import line gives you the real MM sound at about $600.

I hear what your saying. he actually scored the bass for £100 so i was trying to find the cheapest way to get what he wanted out of it.

But i spoke to him last night and he is so pleased with how it plays that he's prepared to throw a bit of money at it. he seems to have his heart set on putting in the seymour duncan smb4a pickup with the stc-3m3 active circuit and he dosent seem phazed at routing another hole in the bass (i refuse to have anything to do with that as woodwork is not my thing).

i will mention the sterling to him though as i know he likes the stingray but its abit more expensive over here

thanks for all the comments guys most helpful