EMG Geezer Butler PHZ Black

These EMG GZR-P Geezer Butler pickups have received rave reviews all over the Internet, and apart from the outstanding quality of tone, what sold me was the EMG solder-less wiring system. They were a joy to install, with gold plated push-on connectors, plush cloth covered wiring, and heat shrink tubing on all soldered joints. Included are top of the line CTS mini pots for tone and volume. There is even a gel filled crimp connector for an existing earth wire, so you don't even have to remove the bridge. Everything is included in a custom made box inlaid with high density none perishable foam - perfect for cutting to size to fit under the pickups. The coils are encased in epoxy resin, making the pickups impervious to feedback from stage performance sound pressure levels. For passive pickups they have quite a hefty output, and could be described as 'high fidelity with added grunt'. An incredibly versatile sound, equally at home with flats or round-wound strings. And above all, they are QUIET - no hiss or hum. They can even be fitted to a lefty bass, albeit upside down, but 'do-able' straight out of the box. A lot of thought and care from EMG has gone into producing these pickups, and I for one, absolutely love em.

I bought a set of the EMG P-Bass pickups to see how they would sound.
The package contains everything you need to fit your new pickups in your instrument - the pickups, new volume and tone pots, new output jack, and the connecting cables, as well as the pickup mounting screws.
As the EMG Geezer Butler pickups are passive, there is no need for the usual 9v battery which most folk associate with EMG pickups. Rather, it's a straightforward installation process.
Connecting the pickups to the volume and tone pots, and then to the output jack socket, is simply a case of following the installation manual pictures, using the "push to fit" connectors at each stage. There is even a simple-to-use connector to join the new pickup circuitry to your existing bridge plate Earth wire. No soldering required at all!
One thing to remember though, is to only screw the pickup mounting screws into place AFTER you've put the pickguard in place on your bass. The reason for this is that the domed heads on the EMG supplied pickup mounting screws, are ever so slightly larger than normal. This results in your pickguard being unable to be slid over the pickups if the new mounting screws are already in place. Leaving the screws off until the pickguard has been laid onto the face of your instrument, will allow you to then simply then install the mounting screws, and adjust the pickup height as necessary.
The sound of the pickups is really full, with a high output, containing a solid low end, and a fantastic high end clarity.
I liked the sound so much that I have now bought another set to use one one of my other P-basses.
Really great sounding pickups.

I installed these pickups on my Squier Precision MIJ ('93). Installation was quite easy and the instructions were easy to follow. The only missing information is about the use of foam. I did put some of the foam included in the package, although it wasn't written in the instructions, in order to allow the height adjustment. The pickups are very quiet when the bass is not played. Also the sound is nicer, rounder and warmer than with stock pick-ups. Pots' shafts are 1/4' diameter and I had to buy new knobs since the old would not fit. Overall, I'm very pleased.

I've seen all these reviews and all these people online glazing these pickups so I bit the bullet.

Over time I've tried various sets of strings, different amps, amp models, DI, I've plucked the bass everywhere, for the life of me I cant make it sound good. It's like they took a standard P bass sonic profile and moved everything a tad higher in frequencies. It sounds thinner than a normal P bass, and the high mids have this annoying almost-but-not-quite honky sound, and the tone knob cant be rid of them, I had to replace the 0.47 tone pot with a 1.0 to make it somewhat workable. The distinct P-bass low mids are not as pronounced and a 3-Band EQ Amp can't make them appear without also pronouncing the high mids. The worst part is that I could always solder off the pickup but because it uses this proprietary EMG system I need to re-install a new harness.

I've tried to like them, I really did. I dont. You're better off with probably any Alnico V pickup thats on the 10k DCR and 6-ish Inductance ballpark. Fender Standard P pickups blow them off the water for example. Even a stock Squier CV P bass sounds better.

I can at least attest that Flatwounds sound decent, but for the life of me I cant make it sound like a proper P bass with roundwounds.

If your pocket is itching and you're set on proving me wtong please for your own sake buy the P pickup alone. The J pickup is extremely weak and you have to blend it like 99% to make it even slightly discernible. Both Pickups fully on and now your sound is useless unless you've cranked the gain to 11.