6 String Bass Pickups

[Malkav]

Hey all,

I come to you today hoping that you may be able to give my bassist and I advice. He owns a Cort A6, which is a neck-through mahogany winged ordeal that is really quite lovely, however he's found that in general he prefers it's tone with the active circuits etc turned off.

This has lead him to become interested in replacing the bridge humbucker with something a little more growly, essentially he's looking for a replacement 6 string bass pickup that would get him close to that Music Man tone.

In our country the only brand that is readily available that makes 6 string bass pickups is Seymour Duncan and all of their current models appear to be active which is a unfortunately not what he's looking for.

Does anyone have any advice on 6 string bass pickups that are available internationally from a website or direct from a maker that can potentially do that powerful, bright and growly Music Man type tone?

TL;DR I'd like to find an aftermarket Music Man humbucker for 6 string, anyone know of an international option?

 

[iron blast]

Ebay has some but string spacing is almost deffinatly going to be a issue.

 

[LordIronSpatula]

Carvin makes them, though I don't see South Africa listed on their "world" site. I've used these as replacement pickups and in my bass they get reasonably close to the musicman tone.

Carvin.com :: HB6

MEC makes them, although they're obscenely expensive. Near the bottom of this page:

M.E.C. Pickups

And finally, Delano makes them. I've heard a lot of good things about their pickups but have never played them personally.

http://www.delano.de/products.html?&cHash=551b72f6d0&tx_smtdelano_pi1[cat]=1&tx_smtdelano_pi1[series]=7&tx_smtdelano_pi1[strings]=8&tx_smtdelano_pi1[system]=59

Those are the only production 6-string "MM" pickups I know of. Seymour Duncan actually has made something called the SMB-6a which is a passive 6 string MM pickup. They might be willing to make you one, though it might count as a "custom" pickup and cost extra/take longer.

As to whether or not you can find a dealer that will ship the production ones internationally or get one of the manufacturers to do it direct, I have no idea. It's definitely possible though, so try asking some of them!