Split ’51 P-Bass

Hum-Free '50's P-Bass Tone

$160

  • Hum-Cancelling
  • Clean & Articulate
  • Unique Appearance
  • Vintage Output

Lindy Fralin Original Design

( 90 genuine reviews)

Our Lindy Fralin Split ’51 P-Bass is a great single-coil tone replacement for 50’s and reissues. Loud and clear, with no hum. Using USA-Made parts and made by hand, our pickups sound leaps and bounds better than the stock pickups. This is the Hum-Cancelling version of our ’51 P-Bass.

Options

Customize your Split '51 P-Bass:

Notice

Due to the nature of Raw Nickel, Raw Nickel may contain slight cosemetic defects or abrasions.

Recommendation:

We recommend using 2-Conductor With Shield Lead when purchasing a single pickup. 2-Conductor lead allows you to reverse the phase should you have phase issues. Learn About Lead Choice

Note:
Upgrade To A Prewired Pickguard

Fralin Warranty Stamp

More +

Our commitment to quality is unwavering. We build our products to last and stand by our products and manufacturing process—period. We're so confident in the quality of our pickups that we offer a 10-year warranty against manufacturing defects. This warranty is our promise to you that you're investing in a high-quality, durable product that will stand the test of time.
Fralin Handmade Stamp

More +

Our commitment to quality extends to the materials we use. We make all our pickups by hand, one at a time, in our small, humble shop in Richmond, VA, using 100% USA-made parts. This ensures we can build, wind, and assemble all our pickups with great care. We use only the best materials we can.
Fralin Exchange Stamp

More +

Experience our exclusive 30-Day Exchange Program, designed to give you the peace of mind you deserve. It allows you to thoroughly test your pickups in your preferred environment, whether it's on stage or on the road. If you have doubts about your choice, just contact us. We will make it easy to exchange for a better set of pickups.

All '50s P- Bass, Zero Hum.

Want to learn more about our Split '51 P-Bass? Here's all the information you'll need:

Features

Our combination of authentic 50’s P-Bass tone and a Left-Right Coil Design give you killer tone, with no hum! With no modification necessary, the Fralin Split ’51 will drop right into your era-authentic bass or re-issue with ease. This pickup will fatten up your bass up a bit, too. The Fralin Split ’51 is our hum-canceling version of our Fralin ’51 P-Bass Pickup.

  • Lindy Fralin Original Design – Completely Hum-Cancelling
  • Original Fender specifications, with modern output
  • Superb articulation for a clean and clear tone
  • Designed to be even across all frequencies
  • USA-made Alnico 5 Magnets for optimal tonal balance and output
  • Hand-wound with our “Sectioning” technique for unique, dynamic sound
  • Hand-built fiberboard Bobbins for unrivaled quality control
  • 10-Year Warranty on manufacturing defects

 

Sound

Warm, rich, full, with no hum. The top end is warm and round; the low end is full, deep, and dynamic. Our Fralin Split ’51 is the perfect pickup for those who want an era-authentic 50’s P-Bass tone with no hum. The extended low end is deep, rich, and full. Alnico 5 Magnets give this pickup optimal tonal balance and output. By adding a second coil, we were able to achieve a completely silent operation, with a hint of fatness added to it.

It starts here: our manufacturing process allows us to achieve unparalleled quality control. Our Split ’51 P-Bass Pickups consist of USA-Made magnets and wire. Our bobbins are hand-built using local fiberboard and have incredible attention to detail. We wind each pickup by hand, one at a time. Each pickup is wound using our proprietary “Sectioning” technique. This gives the pickup a sweet, clear tone. We assemble each pickup one at a time, by hand. This allows us to achieve unbeatable attention to detail. Finally, we wax-pot the pickup to preserve the pickup and prevent microphonics.

Tonal Graph For Split ’51 P-Bass:

The tonal graph below for our Split ’51 P-Bass features Lows, Midrange, Highs, and general Output.

HIGHS
MIDS
LOWS
OUTPUT

Attack: Dynamic & Full

Videos for Split ’51 P-Bass:

Tech Specs:

See below for the estimated DCR and Polarity Information for our Split '51 P-Bass.

SPECIFICATION VALUE
Stock Ohm Reading:6.85K 1
String Spacing (String to String):18mm
Magnet Wire:USA-Made 42-Gauge Single Poly Nylon
Magnet Material:USA-Made Alnico 5
Bobbin Material:USA-Made Fiberboard
Recommended Pot Value:250K
Recommended Cap Value:0.02mfd 2

Additional Technical Info:

1 Ohm Readings can vary due to a multitude of factors, including ambient temperature, multimeter calibration, different wire batches, and other factors. Due to this, ohm readings are approximate. Learn more about Ohm Readings here.


2 We recommend a 0.02mfd Cap Value on most guitar and bass pickups. The exception is a Magic Cap, which Lindy prefers on the Bridge Pickup of Fender® guitars only. Learn More about Caps Here.

Split ’51 P-Bass Dimensions:

51 P-Bass Dimensions

Customer Reviews

90 Genuine Reviews for Split ’51 P-Bass

  1. Jess Denger

    Verified Purchase

    Great upgrade
    I put this in my squire classic vibes p bass and it is a quality pick up. I play bass in a worship band and because of covid we livestream the service. I immediately noticed the bass tone was much clearer than the stock pick up from squier which seemed very muddy and uneven. Much improved bass tones on our church YouTube channel!

  2. Gavin Caswell

    Customer added no additional comments

  3. Adam Levy

    Verified Purchase

    Very impressed!

    Quality pup. Clear, strong, moody, warm tone I desired. Can’t put my P Bass 50’s down. Fantastic pair with LaBella Flats. I see why these are highly recommended. The reputation is all it is made out to be! Supporting a local, made in the USA company too!

  4. Michael Seeger

    Verified Purchase

    I put this in my Squier Classic Vibe ’50s P-Bass. Great punchy tone, no hum, I’m very happy with it!

  5. Alan Decker

    Verified Purchase

    Awesome Beyond Words

    Oh MY God!! What an amazing sound! It has changed the sound of the bass into exactly what I thought it should be!! I’ve been telling everyone I know about changing their pickups to Fralins!! Please use me as a resource! Anyone who wants to know give them my email address and I will expound on the beauty of this pickup! Thank you so much! Alan

  6. Henry Hibbert

    So glad I bought this pickup. I recently completed a partsbuild 50’s P-bass. The neck is Allparts, and the ash body was cut and routed to specs by Rosser guitars out of North Carolina (ebay). The pick-up cavity is the original size (I noticed that seems to be an issue in these reviews). I’m glad Lindy makes his pickups to original size. It dropped in perfectly. After lots of research, I bought the split coil. When thinking about the electronics, you cannot overlook the harness, the pots, cap, resistors etc., if you lack quality there, then you won’t get the most out of the chain. Kellingsound88 (ebay) produces beautifully crafted cloth wired “original specs” harnesses. His 50’s P-bass has the 12k resistor on the tone pot, just like the original P-basses of this era. Yes, it rolls back to a very dark tone – but by slightly tweaking it forward there is a land of milk and honey with the Fralin Split single. I can get slap happy twang and I can get smooth as silk butter and everything between. Sometimes “expensive” turns out to be “cheap” because what you get is amazing. This is one of those times.

  7. Alan Decker

    Verified Purchase

    Oh MY God!! What an amazing sound! It has changed the sound of the bass into exactly what I thought it should be!!

    I’ve been telling everyone I know about changing their pickups to Fralin’s!! Please use me as a resource!

    Anyone who wants to know give them my email address and I will expound on the beauty of this pickup!

    Thank you so much!

  8. Robert Small

    Verified Purchase

    I have a 53 p bass that had a terrible noise problem, so much it pretty much stayed in the case. I dropped in a split 51 solved all my problems. Sounds great, hope to take it out as soon as the quarantine is over

  9. Richard Bates

    Verified Purchase

    Aim to Please

    I must say first off this pickup did not fit in the cavity of my Fender Custom Shop 55 P Bass. Fender Custom Shop reduced the cavity size so much that it cannot fit this pick up even after Lindy and his gang went out of their way to try to make this work. This is entirely Fender’s fault for not maintaining their original specifications. Thanks, Lindy. I will be a customer in the future.

  10. Jon Tatooles

    Verified Purchase

    Turned a Simple Squier into a Tone Machine

    I picked up a Classic Vibe ’50s Squier Precision as a kick-around that I would happily lend to friends. Nice instrument but I couldn’t get along with the buzz from the OE single coil. I dropped this (standard winding) in, which is a tight fit, but just fine. It turned this simple bass into a superb instrument that will happily use to gig and record. Good balance across the spectrum, ever so slightly mid-forward compared to a U.S. standard P with an OE split coil. This sits in a mix perfectly.

  11. Dana Trantham

    Verified Purchase

    Dramatic improvement over the single coil The previous owner installed … much better treble response and superior note definition.

  12. Karina Zen

    Verified Purchase

    Great! Very good sounding, and very well built!

  13. Phil Clark

    Verified Purchase

    This pickup transformed my “ok” sounding but GREAT playing 2018 Squier Classic Vibe 50’s P Bass into The best bass I’ve owned. I followed a previous review from Timothy J Privish in purchasing +5% over wind since the stock pickup sound so weak compared to my other basses. I also noticed on the stock Squier pickup the posts were level and that The A string wasn’t as loud as the others. The raised posts fixed that issue. I love the simple look of the pickup too. I have a Godin xtsa that is an enjoyable, flexible guitar. It just has “Godin” printed anywhere they could think to plaster it. Big ol EYE ROLL for that. Fralin’s let the sound speak for themselves and they are worth every penny! The Godin Godin Godin Godin Godin may be next.

  14. Wayne

    Verified Purchase

    Had the split installed in my 51 reissue and gigged it in my Zep tribute band and it was incredible. Ampeg SVT power, 8/10 cab! Sat perfectly in the mix. Sound man loved my tone and so did my musician friends. Love the product. I recently ordered another one for my other reissue.

  15. Sean Savacool

    Verified Purchase

    Perfect but for one thing! (Standard wind)
    This pickup sounds very good. Yes, it does have the spirit of the single-coil ‘51, but it is a little different. It retains the low thud and trebly attack of a single-coil, but it also has a little of the low-mid reminiscent in the standard split style p-bass pickup. It is only a little louder than the single-coil pickup and is slightly thinner in sound than the standard p-bass pickup.

    The only thing about this that might limit its use is that you can not install a coil-split on a push-pull and go back to a single-coil sound with this pickup. This is something I did not quite realize when I bought the pickup and was intending to do that to it, only to discover that I could not. This really isn’t that big of a deal, and in no way diminishes the high quality of this pickup. I would give this a 100% recommendation to anyone only wishing to drop a hum-canceling option into their ‘51 style p-bass.

    Now, the reason for the 4 stars. I, along with just about everyone else out there, found that I had to modify the pickup in order for it to fit into the pickup cavity. This took a while to do as you need to be careful not to damage it in the process. I don’t know why they don’t just make the bottom plate narrower so that this is not a problem. I installed this into a Fender Custom Shop ‘51 Precision Bass and still had this issue.

    Ultimately, while I loved the sound of this pickup, I went with the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop Stacked ‘51. It actually dropped right in without modification and I was able to do the coil-split on a push/pull as I had originally wanted. Still, if that option does not matter to you and you don’t mind spending a little extra time with modification of the pickup, I highly recommend this great sounding pickup.

  16. Duncan Roylance

    Verified Purchase

    ‘51 Split P
    Quick delivery to Australia, great old school tone, great output, zero noise, perfect for the Squier Classic Vibe 50s P bass. Only 4 stars as I had to file a bit off the base plate corners to fit – scary business. Also, I would recommend requesting uniform pole piece heights for this model bass. Excellent replacement pup though, highly recommended.

  17. James Dungan Seaver

    I bought my Lindy Fralin overwound split single coil-pickup to replace a custom-wound retro single coil what was similar in design to the original 1951 P-bass.  That retro pickup sounded great, but it buzzed all the time. I expected that – that’s what they do – and thought I would get over it.  I could not, so I bought the Lindy Fralin split single and now I have the sound I want without the buzz.  I hear a nice, thick, mule-kick bass with good even tone, and several sound guys have complimented me on what they’re hearing.  I’m glad I bought the pickup and it will remain my final choice for my bass.  Thanks, Lindy Fralin, for making a great split single-coil pickup! ~ James

  18. Phillip Jordan

    Verified Purchase

    Amazing.

    Made what wasn’t a spare “unique to have” bass into my main go-to bass.Incredible tone and versatility. Amazing!

  19. Robert Dauernheim

    Verified Purchase

    Tone Monster !

    I ordered this pickup for a custom build I was doing, when the pickup arrived, I installed it in the bass, and was quite surprised by how quiet it was, and the tone was amazing. Keep up the great work Lindy & staff, you have a lifelong customer now !

  20. Tor Even Brennvik

    Verified Purchase

    51′ P-Bass: No hum. Fantastic pickups, recommended!

Add a review

Leave a review for our Split '51 P-Bass

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *