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Bass pickups in a guitar?
- Thread starter Max3000
- Start date
Shhhhhhhhh......
*whispers*
It should work just fine. And it likely won't sound much different from a guitar pickup. But don't tell the pickup snobs.
*whispers*
It should work just fine. And it likely won't sound much different from a guitar pickup. But don't tell the pickup snobs.
There could possibly be a bit more round or bright tone produced depending on the windings. It could also be hotter or "quieter".
But magnetic fields are not extremely prejudiced. Whatever vibrating steel that disturbs the field will do, whether it's as big as a #2 pencil or tiny as a hair.
You could mount the pickup to a 2X4 and pull a couple of guitar strings across it. That would at least give you an idea what the frequency response would be for about $5 including the board and nails (assuming you already own a jack and a pickup).
The Fender XII had Mustang bass pups. You can hear Jimmy Page play it on 'Stairway To Heaven' if you want to listen to a sound clip.
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Fender also used "Jaguar type" pickups in his Bass VI. AFAIK they were the same. A good friend of mine had one and the pups were quite microphonic. We used to yell into the pickups and when we played the tape back it sounded like we were yelling, but from very far away. We used that to great effect between pieces for a Zappa/Beefheart nuance.
Leo Fender took that idea with him to G&L. He designed a six pole split pickup. They were called Comanches. Looked cool. Have no idea what they sound like.
Fender (FMIC) made a Strat with Seymour Duncan Lipstick tube pickups, and turned right around and designed the short scale Rascal bass with the very same triple lipstick tubes. Very cool, but short lived. Smart collectors snatched them up. You rarely see them being played.
Fender (FMIC) made a Strat with Seymour Duncan Lipstick tube pickups, and turned right around and designed the short scale Rascal bass with the very same triple lipstick tubes. Very cool, but short lived. Smart collectors snatched them up. You rarely see them being played.
The MFD Z-Coils are great pickups, probably the broadest timbre guitar pickups I've ever heard:
G&L put them in their ASAT & the Comanche.
I had a Comanche & it sounded spectacular, but it was probably the heaviest guitar I've ever owned.
The Dual Fulcrum VIBRATO bridge on those is the best non-locking vibrato setup out there.
G&L put them in their ASAT & the Comanche.
I had a Comanche & it sounded spectacular, but it was probably the heaviest guitar I've ever owned.
The Dual Fulcrum VIBRATO bridge on those is the best non-locking vibrato setup out there.
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GAS-Attack! I had briefly forgotten all about this instrument. Now my wallet is NOT AMUSED
I think I remember a band that had no bassist. They had a guitarist who had put two very heavy guitar strings on his E an A. There was a P Bass pickup in one form or another under the strings. He then went from there into Sheenan Land amp-wise. My 15 year old brain went to chicks for a second or ten and I was off to practice.
The guy claimed that he got a bigger sound but I never heard the music so I couldn't tell you if it does or doesn't.
The guy claimed that he got a bigger sound but I never heard the music so I couldn't tell you if it does or doesn't.
A pickup is just magnets and copper wire --- a bass pickup has the magnets or pole pieces located and spaced for bass strings and a guitar pickup has them spaced for guitar strings. I've got a strat pickup as the bridge pickup on a bass - sounds just like a jazz bass pickup but is barely wide enough to catch all four strings. Guitar pickups and bass pickups come in all varieties of magnetic layouts and strengths and number of turns and dimensions of the windings that give the pickup the voicing. So it just depends on what the particular bass pickup was designed to sound like as to whether it sounds the way you like it on a guitar. A jazz bass single coil pickup will sound very similar to a Strat pickup (same basic design) but the pole pieces are not in the exact right places. Nothing to be gained by using a bass pickup on a bass IMO. Only reason I used a strat pickup on my bass was because it had a strat size/shape route there already and I had the strat pickup lying about.
Local H, if I remember right. No idea how well it worked, I never heard them live and in the studio a good producer could make anything sound huge.
Check out the cover photo of Steve Miller's Sailor album. Both Steve and Boz Scaggs are holding guitars that have had bass pickups added.
There is no Physics reason that there should be a difference between a bass and guitar pickup, assuming it's the usual magnets, wire, and perhaps pole pieces. Magnetic pickups don't have a lower limit on their frequency response. The only exception I know of to this is the Lace Alumitones - they have a transformer (which steps up the voltage to a usable level) that does limit the low frequency response in the design.
