Bass pickups in a guitar?

[morgansterne]

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.

I did see Local H live -- he had a pedalboard where the E and A strings went through an octave pedal to cop the bass sounds for the band. It worked and sounded like it was supposed to. But very limiting from a songwriting standpoint. Without the octave pedal it wouldn't sound special at all.

In the studio they just overdubbed with a real bass guitar. I think his whole rationale behind the guitar as bass thing was to save money while touring.


Local H was incredibly loud in this little club (old Peabody's in the flats for you Cleveland Ohio types!) and as I forgot earplugs I left about six songs in.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

I have done both ways. Bass pickup in a guitar, guitar pickups in a bass. Both work fine.

 

[FugaziBomb]

Would there be more bass output, and if so is it a usable sound?

I've heard that bass pickups actually tend to be brighter than guitar pickups, though this is purely based on hearsay and conjecture

 

[IPA]

Semi on-topic, IIRC the Fender "twisted tele" neck pickup uses P-bass pickup poles to get a beefier tone. It's a fantastic neck pickup, sounds almost nothing like a regular muted, jazzy tele neck pickup.

But enough about guitars...

 

[ctmullins]

I've heard that bass pickups actually tend to be brighter than guitar pickups, though this is purely based on hearsay and conjecture

That’s probably true for certain bass pickups and certain guitar pickups, but I would definitely not extend that to a generalization.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

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.

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Dang it, man! Now I want to get a 335 and a model 1 pickup! Aaarrrgh!!!

 

[Matt Liebenau]

I forgot about this. You didn't really say what the goal was but if you're trying to get a bass sound from a guitar, you might look at this: https://www.alittlethunder.com

 

[Killed_by_Death]

A Little Thunder ad copy bugs me, they left out the unit of measure:

"traditional 8.2K humbucker"

They have over 8,000 humbuckers in there!

 

[Rallinger]

I've heard that bass pickups actually tend to be brighter than guitar pickups, though this is purely based on hearsay and conjecture

Many basses are active and depending on the input impedance of the preamp their pickups usually get less load compared to those of a passive bass. So one and the same pickup will sound brighter on an active bass.

 

[FugaziBomb]

Many basses are active and depending on the input impedance of the preamp their pickups usually get less load compared to those of a passive bass. So one and the same pickup will sound brighter on an active bass.

Most active basses have passive pickups. Very few "active basses" are anything but a passive bass with a powered EQ circuit.

 

[Rallinger]

Most active basses have passive pickups. Very few "active basses" are anything but a passive bass with a powered EQ circuit.

Yes. But in a passive bass the passive pickups get load from the pots that are wired behind them plus the cable. And as a consequence, the resonance frequency of those pickups goes lower.

Depending on the input impedance of the preamp (normally higher compared tho pots in passive wired instruments) the (yes they are passive) pickups in active basses get less load. And that's why their resonance frequency is higher // the pickups do sound brighter compared to how they would sound in a passive wired instrument (like most electric guitars).

 

[FugaziBomb]

Yes. But in a passive bass the passive pickups get load from the pots that are wired behind them plus the cable. And as a consequence, the resonance frequency of those pickups goes lower.

Depending on the input impedance of the preamp (normally lower compared tho pots in passive wired instruments) the (yes they are passive) pickups in active basses get less load. And that's why their resonance frequency is higher // the pickups do sound brighter compared to how they would sound in a passive wired instrument (like most electric guitars).

Ah, I get where you're coming from. To be fair, my comment about bass pickups being brighter is a pretty far reaching statement. With the huge variety of pickups these days (and the fact that bass pickups usually don't have an identically shaped guitar counterpart) it's almost impossible to have an equal comparison of the two. One day I want to take some kind of hot, rail style humbucker and try it out in the bridge position of a parts bass, just to see what I get.

 

[rejb87]

My Eastwood Hi Flyer bass Has EMG P90 Shaped pickups in it,they are the 85-N and 60-B it has a definite unique sound, I dig it anyways.

However:

All the strings sound great and resonate well with the exception of the high G.
It's at a considerably lower volume,not sure why but I am taking it in to a Luthier.
The pickups this bass came with were absolute garbage,so I decided to rip them out and make a project out of it.
I had no idea that there isn't really anybody that manufactures p90 bass pickups so I decided to Make it active and took some measurements,closest sized shape I could find were the EMG p90s, and since they were a magnet and not pole prices the string spacing didn't make a difference.