Theory: replacing single coil pickups with wide humbuckers (narrow to wide aperture)

[Thunder Pulse]

If you pulled the stock single-coil pickups out of, say, a Jazz bass and replaced them with wide humbuckers like you'd find in a Music Man or G&L, how would you position the humbuckers? Would you position them so one set of the humbucker's coils lined up with where the coils of the stock pickups were, or would you position them so the coils of the humbucker 'surrounded' the spot of where the single coils were?

[mikezimmerman]

You could do either one--there really isn't any "rule". On the Lakland J/MM setup, for instance, the two coils of the MM are more or less where the 60's and 70's position bridge pickups are on a Jazz. If I were replacing the neck pickup with a wide dual-coil, though, I might split the difference and center it over the existing pickup location...unless I were going for a broader sound, or tighter, more modern sound, which might incline me to bump the pickup closer to the neck or the bridge.

Mike

[Thunder Pulse]

Thanks for the reply. I only know Lakland by name, don't know anything about specific models. That's very interesting though - by having a wide MM in the bridge position you basically end up with one set of coils in the 60's position and one set in the 70's. I imagine you can coil tap it as well? That's very cool.

I know there's no right or wrong way to do it, but I was hoping someone here had done it and would chime in with how and why they did it the way they did.

I know with some of the Music Man basses you can get them in an H-H or H-S configuration. I hope I'm doing this image thing correctly...





It's hard to tell if the neck H splits the difference as you said, or if its neck-side coil is in the same position as the S in the bass above it.

[walterw]

well, holding a little ruler to the picture on-screen, both basses have the same scale length, so i can assume the pictures are the same size.

the single on the sterling is just barely closer to the bridge than the neck coil of the 'bucker on the stingray. it's not centered or at one edge of where the 'bucker sits.

[staccatogrowl]

The answer may be associated with the tone you are trying to achieve . . . For example, Warwick Thumb 5 basses have two pickups mounted diagonally near the bridge, producing a certain tone. . . If you like that tone, pickup configuration is part of the equation . . . Some basses that have pickups closer to your theme and question are possibly Tom Clement basses . . . If you go to his website you can see lots of photos with larger apperture pickups mounted in various distances from the bridge . . . Plus, there are many soundclips . . . It might be an interesting starting point. Good luck !

http://www.clementbass.com/web/

or, for a little discourse on an alternate bridge pickup placement:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nesf...eature=channel

[SGD Lutherie]

You can put the pickups anywhere you like. There is no correct locations. Closer to the neck makes them deeper sounding, and closer to the bridge makes them brighter.

Probably the easiest way is to center them over the old pickups like this:

[cyrusstark]

Originally Posted by SGD Lutherie

You can put the pickups anywhere you like. There is no correct locations. Closer to the neck makes them deeper sounding, and closer to the bridge makes them brighter.

Probably the easiest way is to center them over the old pickups like this:

Off topic, but it never ceases to wow me how beautiful some of the members' basses on TB are. Awesome job on that axe there SGD.

[SGD Lutherie]

Originally Posted by cyrusstark

Awesome job on that axe there SGD.

Thanks! It's not my bass, but I did the mods to it (pickups, pickguard and electronics).