I just purchased the Fender Custom 60s pickup set and I'm trying to replace my pickups. I can figure out the wiring fine except for the little plates that the pickups sit on also have a wire soldered to them. One plate has a long metal stem (about 3 inches) coming from the center of the plate.
My questions are:
What do you solder the wires to?

What gear is everybody using to track bass guitar? I'm mostly talking about going direct. What signal path, and gear is everybody using to get the killer bass sound?

Please list the gear, and style, with a short discription of tone.

Thanks

Darren
http://www.dixondigital.com

What is your favorite combination of Bass Guitar pickups and Direct Injection/Mic Pre for the classic rock sound?
Do you like aftermarket pickups or are the American Fender pickups the ticket? You may throw in your advice for compressor, but you'll probably just say 1176.

We've managed to get a pretty killer sounding fat keys bass that sounds like John Paul Jones (with the right player!), but using the Yamaha midi sound module that had the only workable bass sound I could find, this required radical parametric EQing (15db cuts and adds! ) and some other wizardry.

Hi!

I brought up a question in the mastering section about the balance of frequency where the guitars and the bass overlap and someone thought I should bring it over here(what was I thinking?)It was posted for a particular song I was working on and since then I have come up with some good recipe.

Hi all.

I noticed some nice talk about frequency carving here and have a question.

i work sometimes with a bass player who plucks the strings with his thumb and not his fingers
it usualy sounds muddy and (indistinct)?
how would one tone it up a bit to get that clear definition the low end needs?

I'm recording: Fender Precision bass -> 12' Monster Cable -> M-Audio Omni I/O -> Delta 66 -> PC Windows 255 RAM, 750 Pentium III -> Vegas LE.

I'm getting a low hum (60 cycle?)

- Will a DI box fix this.

For some reason my bass sounds are generally muddy and don't settle into the low end. I am trying for a fat, yet punchy sound that has power.

I have this synthesized bass that I need to be really bassy - [around 40-60hz]. I'm trying to the thing is across the level I set it at. Should I put it at a level that you can _almost_ hear [because I have to keep in mind bass boosts on stereos]? Any suggestions?

[note: I'm new to recording, I have no job in recording; I'm 16 with a hobby]