new location for the pickups. your thoughts

[jordan_frerichs]

i have taked with several people on the issue of aditional pickups, that happen to go around the same area. out of these conversations, a cortraversial idea was created.
what if a pickup was attached to something like a fender pickup cover, on its underside, above the strings?
keept in the same allignment, the same distance from the strings, but upside down, allowinging 2 different pickups in the same spot. some say it will work, some say it will probably cause feedback issues. never heard of anyone trying it. what are your veiws on the idea? will someone volunteer a test bass?
also, if the 2 pickups in 1 area idea don't fall through, what about the idea of a pickup, riged onto the pickup cover, just for the sake of it being moveable?

[MonetBass]

Alembic did this on Jack Casady's bass (their first one, BTW). I guess it never caught on.

This pic is from Tony Bacon's The Bass Book. Everyone on these forums should have a copy.

[wms]

Sliding pickups??

Take a look at the basses & specs on the Norton Guitars site.

[T2W]

I dont think hes talkin about sliding pickups. I get what you mean Jordan, I have thought about this as well. However I have no idea if it would work. To continue adding to the idea, maybe if you do two coils but instead of having two poles per string like a conventional pickup, you could put one, and add the second on the 'upper' coil, the one above the strings. So the disturbance in the magnetic field (thats how a pickup works, metal string vibrating between two magnets, creating a voltage) wouldnt be from side to side, but from the bottom-up. So maybe it could be great for slapping but I dont believe it would be all that good for usual playing styles. I guess it would be worth a try.

[uethanian]

i believe it would work...but i dont think it would be worthwhile. the extra pickup would only serve to add to the magnetic drag on the string.

while a plucked string oscillates, a magnetic pickup only reads up and down motion. thats why pickups underneath bowed strings dont work. so it really makes no difference what angle a pickup is around the axis of a string. you wont lose anything, but u definitely wont hear anything 'hidden.'

[jordan_frerichs]

Originally Posted by wms

Sliding pickups??

Take a look at the basses & specs on the Norton Guitars site.

not the idea, but still cool. how much do those things go for?