Question about type of bass pickups

[Infernal Death]

Hello everyone

Right now i am thinking about picking up a cheap bass for recording and fooling around so no expensive one will be considered. That being said i found something which might be ok, if not at least i won't have thrown too much money out of the window.
Anyway this bass is available in two configurations, one has soapbar pickups and the other some musicman style humbucker pickups (much wider and you can see the polepieces of the pu's.
Now i am wondering what might be the better choice for extreme metal, downtuned. Problem is i know nothing about basses and bass pickups. Is there a difference between these like for example between single-coils and humbuckers on guitar ?
Thanks for reading.

Flo

[Endrik]

what's the bass and what are the pickups
give me the manufacturer and model names

usually Musicman type of pickups are the most powerful ones and you should go with those

[Infernal Death]

Thanks for the answer.
Well the manufacturer is pretty unknown, it's a company called H&S guitars. Like i said i am not looking to spend much money as i guess the bass is only for fooling around and doing some demo recording to show my bass player. Everything seriously recording well get done by his Bogart.
Anyway here is a link to the webshop of H&S guitars.

http://shop.strato.de/epages/61003066.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/61003066/Categories/B%C3%A4sse

It's the Sequoia series which is available in those two pu configurations. They are selling them on german ebay and you can score them for around 100 euros so i don't expect too much.
I looked around and seems like a problem with the musicman type pu's is that there aren't really any 6 string mm style pickup upgrades. So if the bass is ok quality-wise it would be difficult to upgrade the pu's. Something i would consider down the road, of course if the bass itself proves that it's worth.

Flo

[Endrik]

I don't have any experience with those specific basses but If those pickups really sound KINDA like MMs, then it would be the right choice.

That being said, why do you want a 6 string bass?
Good sounding 5 string basses are very hard to find and all the good ones are very expensive. Good sounding 6 string basses are even harder to find.
Cheap 5 or 6 string basses sound horrible, the low string is very muddy and undefined sounding.
I would recommend to get a 4 string bass and down tuning it.
The best bang for the buck is an used Mexican Fender.
Mexican Fender basses have a really good quality lately, a lot of them are better than the US ones, no BS, that is a fact.
Fenders are simple and fool proof... and they always deliver.
P-Bass would be excellent for you, it has that dirty sounding growl wich is excellent for heavier music.
And you can always ad an onboard pre-amp wich are very cheap these days, even the best ones are available for less than 200 bucks.

[Mordor]

I agree with Endrik. If you are not in a hurry the best thing to do is to check ebay until you can score a nice used instrument for cheap. I bought my Samick (6 strings, neck thru, active elec.) for 250€. Good luck!

[Infernal Death]

Well the thing is that my bass player has a 5 string so for recording i also need a 5 string bass. Since the 5 string version and the 6 string version aren't that far apart money-wise i thought i would go for the 6 string version.

No, not really in a hurry, i just thought since those basses are at ebay right now i will get one. Well let's see what the time brings. Will check ebay regulary if something pops up which could be the one.

Thanks to both of you.

Flo

[Endrik]

Well the thing is that my bass player has a 5 string so for recording i also need a 5 string bass. Since the 5 string version and the 6 string version aren't that far apart money-wise i thought i would go for the 6 string version.

before you decide, here's a couple of facts

* that 5 string bass will sound 3 times better than the 6 string one

* there isn't a thing you can't play with a 4 string bass, you just down tune it and that's it.... no need for the high notes.... unless you are a jazz fusion pro and want to play solos

[Infernal Death]

Ok thanks for telling the facts. Maybe i will settle with the 5 string.

Yes my bass player plays on all five strings, he often plays sort of lead bass licks, tappings and such stuff all over the strings. So it would be convient to also have 5 strings.

Flo