If a tree falls in the forrest do pickups actually make a difference

[M.R. Ogle]

I think it all matters, but I will say this... I've changed pickups on my main bass and have used countless different string types, and its basic tone is always very recognizable despite these changes, so I'm not one of those who holds the "pickups and/or strings are the biggest factor" opinion.

Same experience.

Better pickups for your bass = better microphone for your singer.

 

[GlennW]

Seeing/hearing is believing.

I'll believe changing the wood will have more effect on the sound than changing from dead flatwounds and a Gibson mudbucker to a Dano Lipstick RI and bright roundwounds when I see/hear it.

 

[Hopkins]

Hopkins; the goal isn't to build the stiffest neck possible. Why would we want to do that? That would result in, well, a Steinberger. A carbon fiber slab with pickups and a cold, synthetic sound. Cool for some applications, but most bassists don't want that sound.

Modulus basses are graphite necks and I have always found them to be to dark sounding. I guarantee this is because of the electronics used not the neck. I also wouldn't say they are cold and lifeless sounding.

From the days of Leo, wooden framed basses have always been preferred because of the way the flexing of the wood frame softens and warms the sound of the steel strings. All manufacturers play around with the structures of their instruments to shape the tone. Look at Rickenbackers, for example. They have very flexible necks and bodies, which is a main part of their characteristic tone. And a part of their notorious stability issues....How about Gibson with their mahogany necks? That's done for rich tone.

Fender Gibson and Rickenbackers built their first solid body electric instruments out of wood because it was the only material that was stable enough, and light enough that was available at the time. I'm pretty sure Leo used maple alder and ash because it was cheap and available. Gibson and Ric used what they used partly for the same reason, and partly for aesthetics. If carbon fiber and graphite were available in their day, at a similar price to wood they would use it. But why change now, their customer bass doesn't want change, which is why people are still making pickups with cloth insulated wire, and using big heavy reverse tuners on RI Fender models.

Fenders tend to use stiffer construction overall, and there's a lot of variation between models and individual instruments. Usually, the Fenders that players pick out as the best sounding, one in a thousand types, will have the softer more flexible frames. High end builders of Fender-style basses, like Sadowsky and Lull, use all kinds of tricks in the way they build the necks and bodies to get that sound. There are a lot of tradeoffs involved, getting the frame soft enough to bring out the warmth and richness, without losing too much sustain and frequency range.

Making a bass really stiff and stable is easy. But that's not what we're trying to do.

Are you saying that only 1 in 1000 Fenders sound good because the rest are to stiff?

Obviously, this is a huge subject, and there's a lot of misunderstanding here on TB about how basses work, and why we Luthiers build them the way we do. We do have real reasons for these things. I've been designing and building basses professionally for 23 years now, and I can tell you that they are not just a slab of wood with pickups.

I haven't been building for 23 years, but I have built my share of basses and guitars, I don't consider myself a luthier because I don't build violins, I stick to solid body stringed instruments. In this time I have also learned that there is no magic voodoo that goes into building them. If a bass is built with solid construction, from quality materials it is probably going to sound good.

People make instruments out to be some kind of mystical creation in which every minor detail can drastically change the way it sounds or feels. Builders love this because they can profit on the idea their customers have that a bass with a 15 piece neck, and hippie sandwich body made from exotic hardwoods will sound so much better than that alder bodied Fender with a one piece maple neck.

And no, a bass isn't a slab of wood with pickups. It also has a strings, and hardware

 

[Hopkins]

Seeing/hearing is believing.

I'll believe changing the wood will have more effect on the sound than changing from dead flatwounds and a Gibson mudbucker to a Dano Lipstick RI and bright roundwounds when I see/hear it.

Thank you sir!

 

[Jensby design]

Isn't the reason for using multiple lament necks, and carbon rods, to increase the stiffness, and stability of the instrument? I have never met a builder that builds their necks to have flex in them.

Flex is a scary word to us builders,we like to use words like vibe or punch.
Ever play a bass with an ash neck?or maybe a neck that was pre-stressed(when glued) against the pull of the strings so that the truss rod is loose and not adding stiffness.
That neck can be stable without being stiff.
This effects the way the bass plays and the way the notes ring out(attack and decay as well as non-resonating frequencies).And this can be said for the bridge and body as well.The pickups and electronics simply reproduce and color this.
The strings are still where the sound comes from they just have to fight their way through a vibrating neck,softer wood body,whatever cheep light weight bridge I used,through a pickup I made on a sewing machine . . . I'm sorry what was I babbling about

 

[SGD Lutherie]

But when you work with the structure of the bass, allowing the neck and body to flex with the strings, you can bring in character to the tone that pickups alone are incapable of adding. That's what we Luthiers do; push the wood structure to shape the tone.

+1

It's all about degree too. between a flat sawn one piece neck, and a composite carbon graphite neck, you can have varying degrees of flex. And it doesn't take much.

Plus we have the resonance of the wood too. I cool thing to do is use a softer, lighter wood than typically used for necks, and then make it still with graphite. Ten you keep a nice woody tone, but have better sustain and no dead spots.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Bruce, Isn't the reason for using multiple lament necks, and carbon rods, to increase the stiffness, and stability of the instrument? I have never met a builder that builds their necks to have flex in them.

I'm not speaking for Bruce, but all necks flex anyway. Try it yourself. Take a bass, and hold it in your lap, and pluck an open string. Now grab the headstock and pull it up.

But there are also much smaller flexes you don't really hear, and they absorb the energy from the strings. This changes the tone, and in some cases, gives you that nasty dead spot on the G string around the 5th fret. This is the result of the neck absorbing vibrations by vibrating itself in sympathy with the notes.

I like to use the example of comparing a solid body guitar to a banjo. On the guitar (or bass), very little of the energy of the plucked strings get's absorbed by the body. This gives you minimal acoustic output, but maximum sustain.

With a banjo, you get maximum acoustic output, and minimal sustain. This is because the majority of the energy of the plucked string is being converted by the drum head to acoustic energy. So the string vibrates the head, and in turn stops vibrating. The energy from the string was robbed by the drum head.

A flexing neck will do the same thing to varying degrees.

The other thing that multi-laminates do is makes the neck more stable, if you orient them properly, and if you use at least two kinds of woods, shifts the resonant frequency of the neck. All materials will resonate at a certain frequency. If the neck is all maple, it will have a strong resonance, and there's where the dead notes come in. Adding a second wood, especially something hard and stiff like purpleheart, changes the resonant frequency, and it's neither of the two woods resonances.

If you make a neck too stiff and without any vibrational absorbent material, like wood, you get a very cold bright tone. Like Bruce said, it's all strings and pickups.

This was Alembic's idea, when they used multi laminates and a big heavy inertia block under the bridge. The original Steinbergers had a similar tone. You also get a lot of fundamental, because it's not being absorbed by the instrument flexing. So if a Modulus neck sounds bassy, it's only because the Fender style neck was lacking in that same low end. This was what I discovered with my 8-string. But you don't need a lot of low end for a good bass tone. You can roll off everything under like 75Hz and it will still sound good. We mostly hear the upper harmonics, and not the fundamentals.

But a certain about of flexing gives instruments the tones we want.

Oh and anyone who builds stringed instruments is a luthier. The name from from building lutes, not violins. Lutes are more closely related to guitars, and we play a bass guitar.

 

[Hopkins]

I'm not speaking for Bruce, but all necks flex anyway. Try it yourself. Take a bass, and hold it in your lap, and pluck an open string. Now grab the headstock and pull it up.

Of course I know that every bass has some flex to it. I often bend the neck like a wammy bar. I know every neck will do this.

But there are also much smaller flexes you don't really hear, and they absorb the energy from the strings. This changes the tone, and in some cases, gives you that nasty dead spot on the G string around the 5th fret. This is the result of the neck absorbing vibrations by vibrating itself in sympathy with the notes.

Every bass player has experienced the dead spot on the G string. I have had them on bolt on, neck through, and set neck basses, with one piece and multi lam necks. The only basses I own that have no audible dead spots are my USA MusicMan S.U.B. bass, and one of my 5 string builds. They are basically a crap shoot, and it would be very difficult to pick out a wood combination that will have no dead spots after the bass is completed.

I like to use the example of comparing a solid body guitar to a banjo. On the guitar (or bass), very little of the energy of the plucked strings get's absorbed by the body. This gives you minimal acoustic output, but maximum sustain.

With a banjo, you get maximum acoustic output, and minimal sustain. This is because the majority of the energy of the plucked string is being converted by the drum head to acoustic energy. So the string vibrates the head, and in turn stops vibrating. The energy from the string was robbed by the drum head.

A flexing neck will do the same thing to varying degrees.

Agreed, but its to a much smaller degree on a solid body instrument.

The other thing that multi-laminates do is makes the neck more stable, if you orient them properly, and if you use at least two kinds of woods, shifts the resonant frequency of the neck. All materials will resonate at a certain frequency. If the neck is all maple, it will have a strong resonance, and there's where the dead notes come in. Adding a second wood, especially something hard and stiff like purpleheart, changes the resonant frequency, and it's neither of the two woods resonances.

If you make a neck too stiff and without any vibrational absorbent material, like wood, you get a very cold bright tone. Like Bruce said, it's all strings and pickups.

This was Alembic's idea, when they used multi laminates and a big heavy inertia block under the bridge. The original Steinbergers had a similar tone. You also get a lot of fundamental, because it's not being absorbed by the instrument flexing. So if a Modulus neck sounds bassy, it's only because the Fender style neck was lacking in that same low end. This was what I discovered with my 8-string. But you don't need a lot of low end for a good bass tone. You can roll off everything under like 75Hz and it will still sound good. We mostly hear the upper harmonics, and not the fundamentals.

But a certain about of flexing gives instruments the tones we want.

The problem is that wood is by nature an inconsistent, imperfect material. Every piece of wood is different, so no one can make absolute statements about tone woods. I also never said that the material the neck is made of and the construction methods used have no effect on tone (Body woods not so much), but I completely disagree that pickups just amplify and color the natural acoustic tone of the bass. I think the neck colors the tone of the pickups and electronics.

Oh and anyone who builds stringed instruments is a luthier. The name from from building lutes, not violins. Lutes are more closely related to guitars, and we play a bass guitar.

You are right by definition. But as someone who only builds solid body electric instruments, and doesn't build, and only does minor repairs and setups on acoustic instruments is more of a builder/tech. I am not in the same league as an acoustic guitar, mandolin, violin, or lute builder.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Every bass player has experienced the dead spot on the G string. I have had them on bolt on, neck through, and set neck basses, with one piece and multi lam necks. The only basses I own that have no audible dead spots are my USA MusicMan S.U.B. bass, and one of my 5 string builds. They are basically a crap shoot, and it would be very difficult to pick out a wood combination that will have no dead spots after the bass is completed.

None of my basses have dead spots.

Agreed, but its to a much smaller degree on a solid body instrument.

It is, but it illustrates how it works.

The problem is that wood is by nature an inconsistent, imperfect material. Every piece of wood is different, so no one can make absolute statements about tone woods. I also never said that the material the neck is made of and the construction methods used have no effect on tone (Body woods not so much), but I completely disagree that pickups just amplify and color the natural acoustic tone of the bass. I think the neck colors the tone of the pickups and electronics.

Right, so by combining woods you remove some of that inconsistency. You kind of average everything out. But no two basses built exactly the same way will sound exactly the same, if they are made from wood. But they can be very close.

It's not just the pickups, and the neck plays a larger part than I used to think. Think about how long the neck on a bass is. That's a long unsupported structure holding the string tension. But the pickups can only sense what the strings are doing, and the structure supporting the strings changes how the strings sound. You get a comb filtering effect.

You are right by definition. But as someone who only builds solid body electric instruments, and doesn't build, and only does minor repairs and setups on acoustic instruments is more of a builder/tech. I am not in the same league as an acoustic guitar, mandolin, violin, or lute builder.

Unless someone is only doing repairs, or using pre-made bold on necks and bodies, it's the same skill set building a solid body as an acoustic guitar. Just you are doing different things. Necks are necks. That's probably the hardest part to make IMO. Acoustic guitars need lots of clamps! bending the sides is actually pretty easy. I was surprised the first time I did it. It's a freaky feeling… you are rocking the wood back and form on the bending iron, and all of a sudden it become elastic, and bends! It was quite exciting.

 

[Hopkins]

Unless someone is only doing repairs, or using pre-made bold on necks and bodies, it's the same skill set building a solid body as an acoustic guitar. Just you are doing different things. Necks are necks. That's probably the hardest part to make IMO. Acoustic guitars need lots of clamps! bending the sides is actually pretty easy. I was surprised the first time I did it. It's a freaky feeling… you are rocking the wood back and form on the bending iron, and all of a sudden it become elastic, and bends! It was quite exciting.

One of these days I am going to take the plunge and give acoustic building a try, but at the moment I don't have the tools to do it. Acoustic construction is very much intriguing to me, and I'm very interesting in getting into building them.

As far as dead spots go, some of my basses with dead spots are pretty minimal, and are hardly a concern. The only bass I own that has a severe dead spot is on a very light weight bass with a Tele head stock. I have experimented with moving weights around the head stock and with weights on the heal end of the neck. I can somewhat reduce them but they are always present on the G string at the 7th fret. I have never had one on the 5th fret where most people seem to experience them. I have also used different bridges which surprisingly had zero effect on the dead spot.

 

[Chasarms]

The strings argument seems a bit out of the spirit of the discussion. Of course flats verses rounds makes an obvious difference, but that is intentional. Playing with a pick verses fingerstyle verses slap makes a big difference too, but that is not in the spirit of the discussion, IMO.

To the OP:

You have to think about how a pickup works. That is - what it does.

When a metal object (the string) disturbs a magnetic field (the pickup) the vibration of the string is converted to electrical energy and sent along its merry way down the cable to amp.

Within that vibrating string, there are all kinds of things going on. You have the primary oscillation (the fundamental) and all of the harmonics, overtones, sympathetic vibrations, etc.

The rigidity of structure, the dampening characteristics of the various parts of the instrument (including but not exclusively the woods) , etc. all affect these various parts of the string motion in different ways. Certain harmonics will be dampened more than others. Certain sympathetic frequencies will be dampened or enhanced. Simply put, the instrument itself serves as a "filter" of the all the stuff going on with the plucked string(s). This "filter" defines the tone of the instrument (to some degree)

So, a pickup is just another filter.

Looking at it simply, there are two possible reasons that the tone is lacking coming out of the output:

1. The bass is dampening the various elements of the vibrating string to such a degree that there is simply no physical information there for the pickup to translate into electrical signal.

2. The information is there but the pickup is not capable of translating it correctly for one reason or another.

So, in order to know the effect that changing pickups would have on the bass, you'd have to have some sense of why the bass sounds as it does now. Some basses will benefit greatly from changing the pickups. Others will still suck.

 

[mapleglo]

I think it also depends on the bass. Change one thing on a specific bass and it make a significant difference, but change that same thing on a different bass, and it may make no audible difference. Because a bass is such a complex system, I think it's difficult to make such a sweeping generalization as which individual parts effect the overall sound in the same way, as a percentage, across the board.

 

[Hopkins]

The strings argument seems a bit out of the spirit of the discussion. Of course flats verses rounds makes an obvious difference, but that is intentional. Playing with a pick verses fingerstyle verses slap makes a big difference too, but that is not in the spirit of the discussion, IMO.

I think it is very much in the spirit of the OP. He asked how the components of a bass effect the sound, and asked which components are the bigger contributors to the over all sound of the instrument.

So one would be overlooking a major component in the overall tone of a bass if strings are left out of the discussion. Yes the choice of strings are intentional, but so are the pickups, electronics, hardware, wood and construction methods.

 

[Chasarms]

I think it is very much in the spirit of the OP. He asked how the components of a bass effect the sound, and asked which components are the bigger contributors to the over all sound of the instrument.

So one would be overlooking a major component in the overall tone of a bass if strings are left out of the discussion. Yes the choice of strings are intentional, but so are the pickups, electronics, hardware, wood and construction methods.

I can't disagree. You are correct of course.

But, in my mind, discussing the tonal differences between flats and rounds in this context is like discussing the performance differences of combat boots and running shoes.

 

[GlennW]

Ok, take two basses (1 and 2), both P style with different wood for necks and bodies, same everything else (even strings), except

1 has a Gibson mudbucker
2 has a Dano Lipstick RI

Try Bass 1
a) as is
b) with 1's neck, 2's body
c) with 1's body, 2's neck
d) with 1's neck and body, and 2's Lipstick pickup

Which configuration of b, c, or d do you think will have the most different sound from a?

 

[3star2nr]

Amp - 80%
Pickups/ preamp wiring - 10%
Strings, bridge,nut - 8%
Neck/Body - 1%
Finish -1%

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Amp - 80%
Pickups/ preamp wiring - 10%
Strings, bridge,nut - 8%
Neck/Body - 1%
Finish -1%

If it was 80% amp, then wouldn't different basses plugged into the same amp all sound the same?

I think there's more than a 20% difference in tone between a P bass, a Jazz bass and a Rick, right?

Build a few basses and then come back and revise that list.

Also, I can play you clips of the same bass/amp combo with different pickups and it sounds like a totally different bass.

 

[Chasarms]

Ok, take two basses (1 and 2), both P style with different wood for necks and bodies, same everything else (even strings), except

1 has a Gibson mudbucker
2 has a Dano Lipstick RI

Try Bass 1
a) as is
b) with 1's neck, 2's body
c) with 1's body, 2's neck
d) with 1's neck and body, and 2's Lipstick pickup

Which configuration of b, c, or d do you think will have the most different sound from a?

This discussion is going in two different directions. If you change the placement or actual design of the pickup, the bass will obviously sound totally different. You are changing the very nature of the bass.

That is a VERY different discussion than replacing a pickup with an upgraded one of the same design in the same position.

Which discussion are we having?

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Seeing/hearing is believing.

I'll believe changing the wood will have more effect on the sound than changing from dead flatwounds and a Gibson mudbucker to a Dano Lipstick RI and bright roundwounds when I see/hear it.

You are changing too many parameters there buddy. The talk was about wood.

Lets take the lipstick tube pickups. They sound different on a Masonite and pine Dano then they would on a Jazz bass.

The pickups have a sound but so do the basses. I put a mudbucker on my Rick. It sounded like a mudbucker, but it did not sound like my EB-2DC.

As far as strings, put the same strings on each bass with different pickups and see if they sound the same.

When doing tests, change one parameter at a time.

So an example might be a light weight mahogany bass with rounds and a certain pickup (and not a mudbucker, since they filter out most of the upper partials) and then compare an identical bass made from maple with the same strings and pickups.

Do you really think they will sound the same?

 

[M.R. Ogle]

Once again, I think we're addressing two different questions. What's easiest to change for the greatest difference in sound (probably strings and electronics) versus what gives the instrument it's basic timbre, which is not easily alterable, if at all.

My belief is that the structure of the instrument is the MOST overridingly important, because it's what you can't easily change.

Strings complete the physical vibrating structure, and finding the "right" set of strings for your bass is paramount. Some basses just don't like certain types/guages of string, and they'll absorb/reflect the strings energy in weird ways. My old Precision HATED DR Sunbeams. Sounded dead, lifeless and hollow. My G&L came alive with the same exact strings.

Once you get that relationship right, THEN I choose pickups to compliment the given sound of the instrument. My rosewood-necked bass, for example, was a bit too harsh sounding with Bill Lawrence pickups in it, but a set of Fender 62 pickups complimented by warming up the sound.... which was originating with the structure/string relationship... very nicely.