Hollow / Chambered body has what effect thru pickups?

[Hungry_Man]

Hi guys, something I've been thinking about for a while I wanted to run by you.

I'm looking at chambered / semi-acoustic basses as a way to get a deeper more woody tone. I'm all about the sub-bass from the bridge pickup 95% of the time.

As I understand things, pickups pick up the vibration from the strings only. There is no microphone in a semi-acoustic guitar to pick up any resonance within the body.

So how does a hollow / chambered body affect the sound of a guitar when plugged in and we are hearing it from the pickups only? Does the hollow space affect the way the strings vibrate or the way the body to which the pickups are mounted moves?

I'm curious. And I'm sure someone here will have an excellent answer. I played a chambered gibson a few weeks back and thought it sounded great. Thinking of grabbing the Allen woody Rumblekat for my mainly dub reggae sound. Thoughts on that welcome too.

Thanks

 

[bholder]

Does the hollow space affect the way the strings vibrate or the way the body to which the pickups are mounted moves?

Both. Yes. This. Vibrations move the strings and the body, causing the body to transform / filter the waveform of the vibration on the string, which is what the pickup is picking up. So the body is like a kid of "resonant soak" attached at the bridge.

The pickups don't pick up body movement directly unless they've gone microphonic (a bad thing).

 

[Hungry_Man]

Cool thanks! Sounds great.