Nordstrand Big J-Blade: Sharp-looking bass pickups coming soon

23 Sep 2016 by Jef | | Approximate reading time: 1 Minute

Nordstrand Big J-Blade bass pickups · Source: http://nordstrandpickups.com/products/big-j-blade/

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Made in the USA, Nordstrand’s Big J-Blade bass pickups are available for preorder now. These new blade-style pickups come in two versions, letting you choose your sonic weapon.

Blade

These pickups in Jazz bass format come in either four or five string versions. Each pickup uses a blade-style pickup polepiece rather than the more traditional single pole piece per string format. Blade pickups have an even response to the vibration of your bass string, basically because there are no gaps between them.

Warm and Wooly or Clean and Clear?

You can specify your Big J-Blades wind between either “Warm & Wooly” or “Clean & Clear”. The two distinctly different tones each cost the same, just you get a choice of how aggressive or laid back you prefer your bass tones. If you are looking for some bass pickups there are now lots on the market, although I don’t think bass players have quite so many choices as guitar players do. So I welcome some new good-looking bass pickups to add to the choices available.

Blade pickups do give an instrument a certain look, which some traditionalists aren’t so keen on. All the ones I own in my own instruments perform really well though and so it has never been an issue for me. My only concern is you need to preorder the Big J-Blades and they aren’t shipping until November, so you will be taking a leap of faith when buying them blind.

No audio demos are available as yet and so it’ll be hard to know which set to choose and whether or not they will work for you.

RRP starting from USD $185.90 plus taxes and shipping

Nordstrand Big J-Blade bass pickups full specifications here