Guitar Rail Pickups on a Bass

[notduane]

The DiMarzio DP296 Relentless Neck is a dual blade, Ceramic, BASS humbucker (4 wire) in
the same housing (albeit covered) as their DP705 X2N-7 dual blade 7-string guitar pickup.

 

[NoBlackTShirts]

Well, I measured across the strings of a regulation Precision Bass that I have, and a regulation Telecaster that I have, and the distances weren't all that different, maybe a sixteenth of an inch, maybe.

I think I'm going to give this cheapie a whack, just as a first-cut proof-of-concept. I don't believe in expensive pickups. It's magnets and wire. That's all. Magnets and wire.

 

[dwizum]

I measured across the strings of a regulation Precision Bass that I have, and a regulation Telecaster that I have, and the distances weren't all that different, maybe a sixteenth of an inch, maybe.

Fender guitars typically have wider string spacing than Gibson guitars. PAF style humbuckers are usually built for Gibson spacing, and hence would be narrower than a telecaster pickup, though some companies do make wider spaced humbuckers by default, or two versions - one for each spacing (i.e. Seymour Duncan calls their wider spaced humbuckers Trembuckers since they're spaced to work with Fender tremolo bridge width). Pickups meant for Fender guitars will be more likely to work on a bass in terms of sensing width. Just something to watch for - it will really pay to check each pickup's specs individually, since narrower-spaced guitar humbuckers won't work with basses that have wide spacing.

At any rate you are totally correct, it's just magnets and wire. There's literally nothing that inherently makes one pickup a guitar pickup and another pickup a bass pickup. Even in terms of design choices like turn count, wire gauge, magnet type, etc - guitar pickups and bass pickups are similar more than they are different. Beyond string spacing and other format-related factors, the distinction between a guitar pickup and a bass pickup is really just convention and marketing-speak.

 

[iiipopes]

Being that the P-Bass is the king of basses, you'd think that its pickup sound would be pursued by people making soapbars.

It is. EMG and Bart in particular make P-pickups in a soapbar housing. There are others out there, these are the two most famous.

 

[ctmullins]

I’m a fan of using guitar pickups on bass. It helps that I prefer narrower-than-Fender spacing.

 

[iAsh]

70 years or so of using identical Danelectro type lipstick tube pickups on both guitars and basses seems like pretty strong evidence it can work. Doug Tullock’s Nep-Tone lipstick tubes are definitely the cream of the crop and for the same price as a Seymour Duncan. Since Doug makes them all to order he’ll do stuff like instrument specific mounting plates and humbuckers without a huge “custom” upcharge. And he’s fast. I’ve never waited more than 10 days from order to arrival. [email protected]

StewMac has an overwound lipstick humbucker for less than $100 too. I might have one kicking around still. Sounds ok.

 

[PhR75]

I had my Epiphone EB-3 modded with Artec HBLB humbuckers and they sound great in it. It also seems that the spacing could work in a Fender style bass.

 

[iiipopes]

I forgot to say that the most famous usage of the same pickup on both a bass and a guitar is the Rickenbacker Toaster pickup, which is wound the same, has the same number of alnico slugs under the same cover, with the same bobbin, etc. The only difference is that the guitar version is drilled with a smooth adjustment hole for the shank of a wood screw and grommet to adjust the height on guitars, and drilled with threads to adjust the height on the neck position of basses with a machine screw.

Related to the above, the original Gibson EB-3 bridge pickup is the same mini-humbucker bobbins and windings as the guitar version, only with four adjustable screw poles for bass instead of six for guitar.

 

[JC BASS 91]

I put a SD Hotrail guitar pickup in my Glarry short scale I modded the heck out of. Works great (WAY better than the stock pickup the thing came with).

 

[2saddleslab]

A quick update: I replaced the TV Jones Super'tron bridge position PU w/ the neck position version. The bridge pickup has curved blades the neck pickup is flat. The rest of my basses have flat pickups and it now matches their output much better.

The bridge pickup [curved blades] is perfect if you want matching output along all the strings. I prefer a more pronounced E & G.

 

[roffe]

I installed a cheap EMG Select blade humbucker in a friend's Eastwood bass, replacing an anemic mudbucker knock-off. I didn't like the EMG much on guitar, but it really sounds pretty good in the bass and my friend is very happy with it. I got it to fit under the mudbucker cover with a little sanding.

 

[Bodeeni]

I have two right now. Have used rails in the Bronco for many years. This one's a Dragonfire Hotrail strat pickup. In my 50s P I just switched to this Dimarzio strat PU. I was having a problem with 50s style pickup changing volume when I bent the string off the poles. So I am giving this a whirl. No volume changes bending, sounds really good and I will gig with it tomorrow.

 

[Steve Dallman]

The only thing wrong with most guitar rail pickups is they're nowhere near long enough to cover all the strings on a 5'er.

Find 7 string rail pickups for 7 string guitars. They are rare, but they work great with 5 string bass widths.

 

[micguy]

Find 7 string rail pickups for 7 string guitars. They are rare, but they work great with 5 string bass widths.

The ones I’ve seen online won’t really cover the string spread of a 5 string bass, unless you have VERY narrow string spacing - 16 mm or so.