For years I played with a pair of P bass style pickups attached in a similar fashion. Then, in an effort to make it a bit more discreet, I made this pickup from scratch, using coils harvested from small motors, and rare earth magnets. The framework is 1/4 inch thick Lexan, with a couple aluminum plates clamping it to the sides of the fingerboard. Here it is on my Kay:
View attachment 4157596
The black plastic is just decorative, cut from a 3.5" floppy disc case.
Naturally every pickup system is a compromise because there's no single point on the bass whose motion represents the full tone of the instrument. On the other hand, we're paid to be heard. Nobody ever complained about my sound. Now based on both pickups, I can recount some pro's and con's:
Pro: You can get stoopid freegin loud before you reach feedback territory, because the strings themselves are acting as ideal bandpass filters.
Pro: Or you can take advantage of that high gain-before-feedback to play with a really light touch.
Con: You can't completely get rid of the electric-bassy sound. It's noticeable if you listen through headphones, a sort of "buzz" that I think is related to how a magnetic pickup distorts the signal, not necessarily better or worse, but differently from a piezo pickup.
Con: Playing with a super light touch can turn into a habit.
Con: No arco.
The mag pickup certainly got me onto the bandstand, and I'm glad that I had it, but at the same time, forcing myself to learn to live with a piezo pickup also forced me to improve my playing. It took me going down a rabbit hole of electronics and speaker design to get there, and the journey is far from over. Despite being in the amplification business, I still prefer the rare gigs when I can play unplugged.
