Show us your 3 pickup basses!

[jay tay]

Originally Posted by Stealth

Just look up Stu Hamm's videos from the 90s, such as this one. It comes with custom-wound pickups, though it's my guess the tetris-block-P pickup needed the most attention as it's not it its usual place. It's probably wound a tiny bit hotter and with a slightly squatter coil to counteract the fact it's now halfway between the Jazzes.

This is a passive variant of his wiring. The production model has an obverse-mounted P-pickup, a three-band EQ that goes after the "dynamic control" (the blend pot) and the selector switch, it has no passive tone control, and the volume control is a 25 kΩ audio pot as it comes post-preamp. It also has noiseless pickups, but I believe they're stacked humbuckers, not in-line humbuckers as in my schematic.

And if you're wondering, they're not "boo"ing, they're "Stu"ing.

I think that this is the urge ii bass.

[Flux Jetson]

Thanks Stealth and Jay Tay. What a magnificent bass. I'm toying with using a 32" scale on the next bass project I'm tackling. I already tune down to C#-F#-B-E (a minor 3rd down) to loosen the strings up a bit on my 34" basses. I'm an absolute giant of a man coming in at a towering 5'7" on a good day, so my hands aren't exactly what you'd call "large". So the smaller scale has had it's appeal to me.

Sweet bass! Thanks for the descriptions and explanations, both of you.

[Stealth]

Originally Posted by jay tay

I think that this is the urge ii bass.

You're absolutely right, I just found the wiring for the original Urge I and it seems a bit more complex than the original.

[Flux Jetson]

Originally Posted by Stealth

You're absolutely right, I just found the wiring for the original Urge I and it seems a bit more complex than the original.

That's a dead link, Stealth. If I dig the syntax out of your post (by hitting "quote") I can get to it by using the URL as an address, but clicking on the link is no bueno.

[moonshinegtrs]

Originally Posted by Doner Designs

Love this except the lack of body contours makes my hands hurt just looking at the picture.

What is that 6 inch wide pickup looking thing??

The 6 string bass pickup was added as a joke in reference to a comment about there not being three pickups in a photo I posted previously (apparently a very poor attempt at humor on my part ).

The original pic was of a bass that I was working on last summer; as mentioned in that post, I ended up going with a single T40 pickup in that particular bass.

The bass pictured with three pickups is a rough cut body blank (I just threw everything on it for the pic); This is a model that I build. When completed, it will have a round-over & be fully contoured. I have five of these under construction right now; I usually build these with one pickup, but I will use the dual P-bass pickups in at least one of them.

Moonshine

[yainkee]

Originally Posted by Flux Jetson

I've had five Carvins. They make some really killa stuff. Best out-of-box action and setup I have ever experienced (owned 28 basses since 1990).

Yea, probably should do something about that Music Man pickup pole alignment thang you got goin on there. It also looks like Carvin put in a neck-pickup-length J pickup in the bridge position (the shorter J pickup) or is that just some image-illusion issue? It looks like it just barely has enough length to cover the 5-string spread.

I also can't help but wonder what putting the neck J pickup closer to the neck would have done, right at around 25.5" from the nut (where a hypothetical 24th fret would be) .. y'know, roughly where the Ric 4001/4003 neck pickup is placed.

Another beyoo-tay-shus Carvin for my bass pic collection! (2GB at this point!)

Yeah, I'm on it with the MM. Pickups with proper spacing is already ordered. In terms of the pickup lengths, I haven't had any problems with the outer strings. Sounds even to me. I have heard that the J99a's are a blade on the inside, so they extend pretty far out.

I do have these crazy thoughts every once in a while of putting a pickup close to the neck like you suggested, making it a 4 pickup! Just seems like a little much

[Mykk]

I just finished adding the neck J-pup to my Precision Musicman. Sounds good, so far that I can tell. The real test will be how she does in rehearsal/live.



All the pups are in Series except for the MM south coil.

[Flux Jetson]

Very cool. So this was a ~what~ when you started out (is it the MIA-J in your sig?)

Any pics of the controls?

I am just about ready to start on modifying my own Squier Vintage Modified 70's Jazz to something along the lines of what you've got going on. In fact the setup you have (MM-P-J) is one of the possibles. I'm flip-flopping badly though, don't know excatly what pickups I should go with, like yours?, or J-J-J?, or J-P-P?, or H-P-J?, or ?-?-? .... ACK! ARG! UGH! ACK! DOH! BLA!!!!!

I know for sure that I want to go 3-pickups. But which actual ones is madening!

I've added your picture to my collection of 3-pickup bass pics. Really nice job there!

[Flux Jetson]

Thanks to the great degree of inspiration found by all of the posters in this thread I've finally taken the plunge and began actual forward motion towards adding a 3rd pickup to my own test-base bass (um .. huh?).

I started a thread about my efforts towards that end, here's a link to the project thread ...

X-Bass - Experimental 3 Pickup Bass

Unforunately there's not much to tell in it's content just yet. But it will grow, like that annoying weed that keeps popping up in that crack in your driveway.

As it progresses I'll be grateful for any positive help and constructive criticism.

Thanks to everyone here, especially to Steve Doner (the fella that started this whole thing up for me).

Good morning, and best wishes. Fluxomatic.

[Mykk]

Originally Posted by Flux Jetson

Very cool. So this was a ~what~ when you started out (is it the MIA-J in your sig?)

I've added your picture to my collection of 3-pickup bass pics. Really nice job there!

Thank you, this bass started life 15 years ago as my first starter bass. A made in Japan Fernandes P-copy and is now my Frankenstein.

If I were to do it over again I would have mounted the MM pickup further away from the bridge. I don't like the tone from the south coil. The north coil of the MM sounds just fine.

With the SPB-3 Precision pups and SMB-4a MM pup, the MM was the dominant pickup and drowned out the Precision. For this I ran a heavy volume bias towards the Precision pickup to keep the MM pup under control.

I haven't spent enough time with the 3-pup version to dial it in.

[Doner Designs]

Is that thing worth the $$$$? I do love it but it seems overpriced.

Originally Posted by jay tay

Not seen a Fender Urge here Yet, so here is mine

[jay tay]

Originally Posted by Doner Designs

Is that thing worth the $$$$? I do love it but it seems overpriced.

I don't know what they go for now, but mine was about £950 back in 2004/2005 for an MIA Fender, signature series bass. Considering you can spend well over £1000 for an MIA P-Bass over here, it's not really that bad!

[Doner Designs]

Originally Posted by jay tay

I don't know what they go for now, but mine was about £950 back in 2004/2005 for an MIA Fender, signature series bass. Considering you can spend well over £1000 for an MIA P-Bass over here, it's not really that bad!

Looks like it might be discontinued but last time I looked it was double the price of a MIA P or J in the US.

[eukatheude]

Originally Posted by Doner Designs

I'm a big fan of 3 pickup basses. Was searching for threads and pics of examples out there but its slim pickins. Love to see some pics of customs with three separate pickups. Comments on wiring and what you like/dislike also would be interesting.

I have built three triples (pictured below). Two use a 3 way switch on the middle/neck volume with a separate volume for the bridge and master passive bass & treble controls.

The J bass also has a series-parallel switching for the two J pickups and phase reversal on the bridge (push-pulls). It pains me to admit, but it currently does not have series parallel switching within each of the split J pickups.

The Air Force Bass has on/off toggles and volume controls for each pickup along with master bass and treble. I like the VVV with three switch config best so far.

Next on the project list are to swap the bridge pickups in the P and the J. The J will get a double J quad coil (I plan to glue two Dimarzio Area J's together). The P will get an 8 wire quad coil MM in the bridge (probably Nordstrand).

Not sure about controls for the redone P and J yet. Would like to do the 10 option wiring thing on the quads which will probably require more routing and a bigger pickguard (to make room for rotary switch and/or 3 way toggle for each coil).

Am also thinking about a new build with three quad coil MM pickups - each with all 10 combos and maybe with 3 separate jacks plus option to route all 3 to a single jack.

Not sure about preamps. The AFB has a Bart TC-3 (boost only - no tone control). With three pickups you get so much tonal flexibility it almost seems unnecessary (did I really just say that).

Unnecessary complexity and overkill is a design objective for me most of the time, so preamps for all (eventually) with bypass switches of course.

Woah, these are awesome! How did you wire a passive bass control? How does that even work?

[Stealth]

Basically, a 0.0022 uF capacitor in parallel with a 1M pot, then both things together put in series with the pickups.

[Flux Jetson]

Originally Posted by Stealth

Basically, a 0.0022 uF capacitor in parallel with a 1M pot, then both things together put in series with the pickups.

Do you have a little larger version of that pic?

[Flux Jetson]

Originally Posted by Stealth

Basically, a 0.0022 uF capacitor in parallel with a 1M pot, then both things together put in series with the pickups.

Won't that type of filter array put a heavy kill on the overall output gain?

[BlueTalon]

For anybody who may be interested, I have swapped email a couple of times with Warmoth, seeing if I can get them to do a body for me with three pickup routing. I proposed P-P-J, P-P-P, and J-J-J.

I know they can do it, since it's just a matter of moving the template, or (more likely) a minor change in the CNC programming. Whether they will do it is a different question. They may conclude it's not worth messing with for one customer.

So... I mention this here because it's relevant. If anybody has a legitimate interest in Warmoth offering a three pickup option on their basses, now might be a good time to contact them about it.

[Flux Jetson]

Originally Posted by BlueTalon

For anybody who may be interested, I have swapped email a couple of times with Warmoth, seeing if I can get them to do a body for me with three pickup routing. I proposed P-P-J, P-P-P, and J-J-J.

I know they can do it, since it's just a matter of moving the template, or (more likely) a minor change in the CNC programming. Whether they will do it is a different question. They may conclude it's not worth messing with for one customer.

So... I mention this here because it's relevant. If anybody has a legitimate interest in Warmoth offering a three pickup option on their basses, now might be a good time to contact them about it.

To have Warmoth add a 3rd pickup, or anything not in their CNC library, they do it by hand with a router. They charge a $40 per hour fee with a one hour minimum (in other words, adding a 3rd pickup will cost ya 40 bucks).

I've built eleven Warmoths so far and have gone that (ahem) "route" a number of times with them. I've dealt with "Spike" there at Warmoth since 2001. These were numbers 2 and 3. .....



This was Number 2 ......

[Stealth]

Sure thing, Flux Jetson.


For anyone interested in a JPJ bass, here's the Passive Ham(m) wiring Mk2 - this time with a series-parallel switch for the Jazzes. Gray is soloed, blue is parallel, red is series.