Anyone bought bass pickups from Dragonfire and had issues with them?
A while back I purchased a set of Jazz Bass Humbuckers. I put them on the shelf so I would have them for the bass I wanted to put them in. I recently put the bridge pickup in the bass and it has an issue with the coil that covers the D & G String being very weak. So weak when the tone is rolled back the strings have no sound. I contacted their customer service contact and they asked me for the invoice number. After giving it to them they told me the pickups were purchased a while back and there was nothing they could do. I was asking for technical support not money or a return. I needed to know how the pickups were made as they are not wired like a normal pickup where the wires exit one side of the pickup. One wire exits one side and another out the other side. A novice could install the pickup either way in a bass. Might it be an issue probably not providing they understand the other pickups configuration and how the pickup should be installed. They tell me they don’t have info on the pickups as they are older and the build on them changes constantly. The web site never changes so I am thinking they buy junk that has no standards of mfg. and no way to tell what is built. No matter how many times I ask them for help they just blow me off. I will never purchase from them again.
I’ve never heard of that brand before.
Hey @A1955Harley , I got a set of their JJ split coil pups.
Once I managed to get them installed, they sound just fine. They really are much quieter compared to normal J pickups, with a rounder, fatter sound.
Things to look out for:
They are split coils. If you open them, you have two smaller coils with 4 pole pieces each. Each coil has two VERY thin (I mean, half a blond one on the CH scale thin) wires coming out to towards two soldered dots at the edge of the pickup bottom plate, for a total of four. On the first coil one wire from the winding leads to the red (hot) wire to the coil, and the other to the crossover into the second coil. On the second coil, one wire from the windings leads to the crossover between the coils, and the other one leads to the black (ground) wire going out of the pickup. There is a third wire (in my pups: red), on the undeside of the pup which is the crossover between the coils.
When I installed these, the neck pup was no problem. In the bridge one, however, I broke one of the wires leading from the first coil into the crossover. This is where I’d have a look in your pup, give how one side is weak. The wires leading out of the coils are really flimsy, and may have gotten loose. Also, check the pole pieces and string height over the pup.
My description of my adventures with Dragonfire JJ pups starts here:
I have been working on guitars for years, all the things you suggest have been looked at. There is just something wrong with the pickup. I bought several sets of them and have them in another bass and they are fine. Unfortunately DragonFire has terrible support. As suggested on one web site its probably a one man operation and the person selling things isn’t really versed in all the technical aspects of the products he sells. And from my interaction with them “REALLY DON’T CARE” No one would let a customer hang out there like they do. They don’t seem to either care of pay any attention to email. I texted them also and got the same kind of response.
That’s a shame and I’m really sorry to hear that.
They did respond to me when I emailed them with a question re. some wiring schematics. Agreed, the answer was quite lapidary (no no manual, the pups have just two leads, hot and ground and install them like any other JJ set) but it was quick. It does sound like they’re a one man shop.
Anyhow, my experience with them has been pretty good overall. However, as always YMMV. I would keep up the attempts, at least for a while.