Noob question, is there any difference in Guitar pickups and Bass pickups?

[WolfgangMF]

Yes noob question but since i might be building my own bass this summer, i need to know if there is a difference between them. I dont want to spend $90+ for something that wont sound good or even work. Sorry for the noob question.

[hover]

Some would say yes, others no. There are sure to have been many examples that use guitar pickups, iirc, like the Danelectro Lipsticks (originals) and the Fender Bass VI...and they get pretty bassy in their own right, the bigger concern is pole piece configuration and optimizing the "sensing window" under each string, and for that above most else you should buy pups optimized for bass...also, guitar pups are not usually accomodating to the wider overall string spread of basses, as guitars have much tighter spacing and overall narrower necks as well. Also to consider is the cavity to be routed for said pickups, there's the area where things tend to get a little more "permanent" in your decision making, as far as the body routing and resultant finish is concerned.

So yeah, you could certainly experiment and see what suits you, but if money is a factor, stick with what is purpose made / standardized.

[WolfgangMF]

Originally Posted by hover

Some would say yes, others no. There are sure to have been many examples that use guitar pickups, iirc, like the Danelectro Lipsticks (originals) and the Fender Bass VI...and they get pretty bassy in their own right, the bigger concern is pole piece configuration and optimizing the "sensing window" under each string, and for that above most else you should buy pups optimized for bass...also, guitar pups are not usually accomodating to the wider overall string spread of basses, as guitars have much tighter spacing and overall narrower necks as well. Also to consider is the cavity to be routed for said pickups, there's the area where things tend to get a little more "permanent" in your decision making, as far as the body routing and resultant finish is concerned.

So yeah, you could certainly experiment and see what suits you, but if money is a factor, stick with what is purpose made.

And just as a suggestion for future posts, this belongs in the "pickups" forum.

Alright thank you, i was just looking into this and noticed guitar pick-ups were cheaper than bass ones so i wondering what the difference was. Thanks again.

(And...isnt this the Pickups and Electronic Forum? )

[Jools4001]

Ric toasters have 6 pole pieces underneath the covers and are the same as their guitar pickups as far as I can see. Assuming that we're talking about standard 4 string basses and 6 string guitars, they don't neccesarily have wildly different sized pups, sure basses have wider string spacing but then they only have to fit 4 strings into the same overall width as a 6 string guitar.

[walterw]

Originally Posted by WolfgangMF

Yes noob question but since i might be building my own bass this summer, i need to know if there is a difference between them. I dont want to spend $90+ for something that wont sound good or even work. Sorry for the noob question.

if that's the question you're asking, you're a long way off from building your own bass.

you need to read and learn enough to grasp how silly that question is, or you'll spend a bunch of time, money and effort to no good result.

think about it: if you if you asked a mechanic, "is there a difference between a V8 and a V6, because i'm thinking about building my own engine this summer", what response would you get?

[JustDavid]

Originally Posted by walterw

if that's the question you're asking, you're a long way off from building your own bass.

Kindly, +1. At least for the electronics portion.

[hover]

Originally Posted by walterw

you need to read and learn enough to grasp how silly that question is, or you'll spend a bunch of time, money and effort to no good result.

Tho not as tactful as you coulda been, I'd say I'd equal parts agree and disagree. Your analogy about V6's and V8's is not germaine to the question at all, we're not talking about whether a part will bolt on and fit, you can drop a strat type coil in a humbucker slot and it WILL fit and WILL work when you wire it up. But here, we're talking about how certain pups will work in certain applications. How are you so sure there would be "no good result"? Could end up being the sound he's had in his head for years. Yeah, it's a "noob" question, but It's not a silly question.

You can most certainly use guitar pickups in a bass application, and it is only up to the end user whether the resultant sound is what they were after. Maybe YOU need to read up about just exactly how these electronics work, or you'd not be so fast with your assumptions. On the surface, the convenient tag of guitar vs. bass pickup on packaging is really just points of reference, as you know "a" will fit in route "a" or "b" with "b"...that said, just go ahead and wire in a guitar pup into a bass. it WILL work. And it HAS worked, and could potentially WORK very WELL to the OP. People have been doing this for decades, from production instruments to people that tinker and love it. Take your own advise and research this yourself.

As I said earlier, if time and money and assured end result on the first try are the main concerns, stick with what is known to work. If at a later time you wanna experiment, awesome, do it. Maynot look pretty, but it might sound incredible.

[GlennW]

I've used many Strat pickups in basses; as with all types of pickups some sounded very good, some didn't. The main thing to be sure of is that the string spread isn't wider than the magnet spread.

[hover]

Originally Posted by WolfgangMF

(And...isnt this the Pickups and Electronic Forum? )

Yeah, you got the quote in before I edited mine, I thought I was in the basses forum, my bad...but yeh...

[SGD Lutherie]

Besides a different number of poles, unless it's a blade style pickup, the main difference between bass and guitar pickups is the way they are wound. Bass pickups are usually wound to get a good tone of bass, and vice versa.

If the guitar pickups are clean sounding, they should sound fine on bass. As they wind them hotter you will get a lot more mids, which you may or may not like.

But as others have pointed out, some pickups have been used for either, like Ric toasters and Dan-O lipstick tubes. The early Bart humbuckers worked for both as well.

[Gonz]

I'm no electronics expert, but ill try to help.

As far as i know, guitar and bass pickups work the same way, they both pick the vibration of the strings the same way, so if you install a guitar pickup in a bass, wire it up, plug it, and strike a string, the pickup will pick up the vibration of the string and of course you will hear the sound of the string coming trough the amp.

Now, there are two problems that i think would arise with using a guitar pickup in a bass the first is the size of the pickup route in the body, which i think isn't a problem for you since you say you are building the bass and will route the cavity yourself to the size you need.

The second is where the strings go over the pickup, as you may have seen, some guitar and bass pickups have exposed poles (the small circular magnets) and most of the time these poles are accommodated so that strings go right over the poles, or in some cases, right in between two poles. They are accommodated this way to pick up the vibrations as efficiently as possible in each string, giving an even response in all the strings.

When using a guitar pickup for a bass you will probably encounter the problem that the strings position and the poles position wont match, maybe one string will match and the others wont, maybe two strings will match, maybe none of the strings will match. This will cause an uneven response for each string, and each string will sound at different volume and the dynamics can suffer.

Sometimes pickups don't have many poles, and only have one long bars, or two long bars, in this case that problem wont arise and the response should be even for each string.

So to answer your question, no there are no difference between guitar and bass pickups, they both will pick up sound, but using a guitar pickup for a bass might end in the pickup having a poor performance.

If you do choose to use a guitar pickup for your bass try to find one that uses bar magnets, instead of poles like i mentioned earlier.

Good luck on building your own bass!

[All_¥our_Bass]

Also, guitar and bass pickups are made to emphasize/pick up better different frequency ranges.