Is this weird or normal?

[Willem]

I have EMG extended series pickups in my bass...

the 35P4 in the neck and the 35DC in the bridge.

Now between these pickups there's some difference in output, the P is seems a bit louder (especially in band setting) than the DC. I thought that swapping them would even this difference out, right? Bridge pups should be a bit quieter than neck pups no?

Now I tried swapping them (P to bridge, DC to neck), but this made it absolutely worse. If I set the neck pup as high as possible and the bridge pup as low as possible, the Bridge (P4) would still be 3x times as loud als the neck (DC)...

This experiment gave me totally different results than I was expecting... Was I expecting wrong? Or is this weird?

[PilbaraBass]

amplitude of string vibration (how much it physically moves) is greater near the neck. that translates to more ability to excite a pickup = more signal given the same pickup.

bridge pickups are typically wired HOTTER than neck pickups to compensate for this. there are some practical limitations to this...therefore sometimes there is still a bit of unbalance.

your best solution is to put the pickups back in their former positions and move the bridge pickup a tad closer to the strings (and possilby the neck a tad further) to help balance things out.