WHAT IS THE TONE OF THE DELANO JAY-RAY MUSICMAN® BASS PICKUP?

A very cool and unique offering from our friends in Germany. This MM pickup is capable of a lot. With a punchy mid range, the series wiring of this pickup was our pickup tester’s favorite series tone from a MM. It retails the parallel top end that one would expect, and in general retains the Stringy® tone that many other MM pickups don’t have in series winding. In parallel, we hear a crunchier mid range that has similarities to a Jazz Bass® pickup. In single mode, we here a tone that has a solid attack and is tight.

This pickup was recorded in parallel, series & single coil wirings. These wirings can be done with many Music Man style bass pickups. A player can choose to hardwire the pickup in any of the three modes, or can have a switch to access both. Most commonly, the MM style of pickup is wired in parallel.

The pickup used for this video is the Delano Jay-Ray 4, a 4 string pickup. The 5-string size/shape will sound similar, but not exact as a longer magnet is used in a 5 string. Delano is engineering them to sound as close to each other as possible.

Put on a good set of headphones and check out the audio demo below to hear it for yourself.

As always, keep in mind that these are generalizations. Your experience could be different depending on many factors.