2 Pickups vs 3 Pickups

[KablesP]

I am putting together a franken-bass...an Aria EB-3 body and a Jazz neck. The bass has neck and bridge pickups. I know that the neck pickup can be really deep and the bridge can be shrill, so I wanted to add a P pickup in the middle to balance things out.

I know it wont sound just like a P bass, I don't want that. I just want some mid growl that I can blend in with the other pickups for more tonal variety.

I am almost set on using a Dimarzio Will Power for the neck, a Jazz pickup in the Bridge and a P in the middle.

The Will Power will have a series/parallel/split switch.

I don't know what would be the best knob configuration. I will most likely be using the pickups at full volumes so I feel like a switch would be best.

I also dont change tones mid song very often (on the bass) so I am stuck between Volumes for each pickup or a 5 way switch. Just going to have a passive EQ Tone for all 3 pickups.

How are most 3 pickup basses setup?

 

[bassbenj]

I am putting together a franken-bass...an Aria EB-3 body and a Jazz neck. The bass has neck and bridge pickups. I know that the neck pickup can be really deep and the bridge can be shrill, so I wanted to add a P pickup in the middle to balance things out.

I know it wont sound just like a P bass, I don't want that. I just want some mid growl that I can blend in with the other pickups for more tonal variety.

I am almost set on using a Dimarzio Will Power for the neck, a Jazz pickup in the Bridge and a P in the middle.

The Will Power will have a series/parallel/split switch.

I don't know what would be the best knob configuration. I will most likely be using the pickups at full volumes so I feel like a switch would be best.

I also dont change tones mid song very often (on the bass) so I am stuck between Volumes for each pickup or a 5 way switch. Just going to have a passive EQ Tone for all 3 pickups.

How are most 3 pickup basses setup?

I own a three pickup Modulus and I've developed into a big fan. It just has three Bart soapbars in the neck, bridge and "sweet spot" locations. Originally it just had three mini toggles one for each pickup. Not bad! But then I modded it into a special circuit that allows pickups to be selected as well as series or parallel. I love it.

But I'll warm you right now that all that variety doesn't do as much for you as you think it will. Most often I just use either the neck and bridge in series or just the single "sweet spot" pickup which on this bass is in the P-bass position. So a simple 2-way selector would actually cover about 95% of what I do. But I really like the ability to switch from a single pickup "sweet spot" bass to a more traditional neck-bridge style bass and have both on the same bass.

 

[line6man]

There is no real consistency on triple-pickup basses. Every player has a preference for control schemes, whether there are two pickups, or three. IMO, a switching-based scheme would be best, given the dissimilar output impedances of the pickups. Having multiple volumes is just going to cause weird interactions and volume drops.

Also, you can't have three tones on a passive bass, unless you isolate the signal paths with resistors, because they will all behave as masters, since they run parallel to the signal path. The trouble with the resistors is that they will decrease the output of each pickup. OTOH, you may be fine with the interactions between tone controls in a switch-based scheme, since the pickup selector switch will bypass some controls, depending on the setting.