Does anyone make a universal pickup?

Seymour Duncan makes a pickup ring that is selectable like that, but only for guitar pickups:

https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/...the-heck-did-that-sound-emerge-from-my-guitar

 

There are more architectures in the universe than J, P, and humbucker.

 

Have you seen this:
Super Quad Pickup

 

Pretty much all of the major players in the pickup game are making a "quad coil" pickup. You can wire them in humbucker (both series and parallel) by engaging all four coils, "P bass" by using the coils on opposing corners, "reverse P", and "Jazz" by using either pair of coils. They all come in various sizes and shapes and seem to all come in 4, 5, and 6 strings variations.

MM4.4 Quad Coil

xxP46C-B | Bartolini Pickups and Electronics

Products

 

I saw Rudy Sarzo talking about the SIMS Super Quad. I haven't seen or heard them in person, so I can't vouch for how well they pull it off. I like the idea.

 

Even within the realm of J and P, you won’t get exactly what you’re looking for, as the J pickup coil is tall and thin and the P pickup coil is short and fat. These characteristics contribute to the signature tone. But if all you’re interested in is the position of the coils, then the quad-coils will work for you.

 

If you want some interesting configuration sounds, do the dual humbuckers bit, but use a 5-way blade switch to select individual coils of each humbucker in positions 4 & 2. (one is parallel coils vs. series)
My guitar is set up like this & it is pretty incredible how different the timbre of each position is.



or another option would be to put in a push/pull volume for each pickup & have it set up to switch between series & parallel coils of each humbucker:

 

I recently conducted a test on TB that concluded that while not every pickup in a mid\neck position can convincingly imitate a split single coil, the right jazz style single coil in the right position will fool people 9 times out of 10.
Generally position\configuration means more to your tone than coil size.

 

That would be a super fun project. Sharpen your soldering iron!!!!

 

If anything that would put me off them.

 

Absolutely. I do this all the time on my jazz and with the right tweak to the mids I'd say it is indistinguishable.

 

i believe mark from talkingbass uses these pickups in two of his basses.

 

Do some digging on the nordstrand website. It takes some serious electonics work, but a lot of boutique nordstrand equipped basses have ridiculous amounts of options between single coil, dual coil, etc. Your average GC guitar tech probably can't wire it for you though.

 

I saw that too.

 

There are lots of possibilities with today’s aftermarket pickups.

I get a lot of variety out of this bass. HH, HS, SH, SS, single H, single S are all possible.
Lot of companies now make a p pickup in a soap bar or humbucker shell. ESP has used EMG p pickups in with the 35dc and 40dc shells in several of their models including the surveyor and the newer stream basses.