Kent Armstrong Hot Lipstick for Dano

Single coil passive pickups. These are meant as upgrades for the stock Danelectro pickups. At 7.9K, they are about twice as hot as the stock pickups. They come in both normal and reverse wound/reverse polarity, for noise canceling.

I bought both the regular and RW/RP pickups to replace the two stock pickups in my reissue Danelectro DC bass. The stock pickups, which are rated somewhere between 3 and 4K, just weren't cutting it anymore. They sounded a bit weak and were making a lot of noise.

Despite being hotter, these pickups still have the same recognizable characteristics of the Dano pickups, which I liked. The Kents have a much stronger sound. The bass response has improved considerably. The overall tone is much clearer. I plug my Dano into an Ashdown MAG 300 with matching 4x10 cabinet. With the tone all the way down it has a nice bassy, muddy tone that is similar to an upright. With the tone all the way up it gets very bright, so it has a lot to work with. I play a lot of classic rock and blues with my band and I also play with my college jazz band. The pickups works great with all these. Which is great because I didn't think the old pickups worked well for rock. I wouldn't really recommend these for anyone playing modern or heavy music since these have a vintage, somewhat woody tone.

If these were destroyed or stolen, I would replace them in a heartbeat. I have been playing bass for about 7 years, so I have some experience. I absolutely love these pickups. They are huge improvements over the stock. My only problem is that ends of the neck pickups aren't as round as the bridge pickup, it's a semi-oval rather than a semi-circle. I could've returned it for the normal one, but I actually like it because it's a better surface to rest my thumb on. You can't tell it looks different from a distance so I kept it. I brought out the sound I didn't think possible on my Dano, so I'm very satisfied. I recommend these to any one with Danelectros or Silvertones with lipstick pickups. I also recommend pairing the regular pickup with the reverse wound/reverse polarity for noise canceling. One last note, you can sometimes find these almost half-off brand new on eBay. Keep an eye out.