Is there a logic behind where exactly pickups go?

[dwizum]

When studying a Ric 4003 for a clone build, I realized that the pickups for a 1" spacing at the neck fall almost perfectly on theoretical 24th and 36th fret locations, which cant have been accidental. How much that positioning contributes to the classic Ric tone is a mystery. The older Ric basses had 1/2" pup spacing at the neck, which aligns with nothing, go figure. A few TB'ers have built "mules" with sliding pickup locators as test beds, but as said, as soon as you fret the note, its all out the window. You could probably use a mule to ballpark it to where it generally sounds best, Im guessing thats what Leo Fender did. I have no idea what metric other modern builders are using, probably ballparking it too. Any mule builders out there, how well does it work?

There are lots of examples where a pickup happens to be at a harmonic point, which unfortunately contributes to people assuming those points are magic, or that there's a tonal reason for putting the pickup there vs anywhere else. There isn't. It's coincidence, or convenience, or whatever you want to call it. A pickup at the 36th fret position will sound juuuuuust a little more bassy than one at the 37th fret position. The 36th position happening to be a harmonic point doesn't inherently change that.

It's human nature to want a reason for everything, so when we see a pickup is at a harmonic point we want to believe that there's a reason for that. Pickups at harmonic points can definitely sound good, but it has literally nothing to do with it being at a harmonic point. It's completely arbitrary.

Imagine you go to the butcher and ask him to cut you some steaks, and you tell him you want them 1" thick. That steak is (hopefully) going to taste great! But it's because the steak itself is tasty, and 1" is a reasonable thickness. The fact that us humans have come up with a thing called an inch, and the steak is cut to exactly one of those units, is meaningless in terms of the final result. Cut a steak at 1.1" and it's going to be very similar in terms of how it cooks, buy a liiiiitle different. Now, if he cuts one of them at only 1/4" or at 3", that's gonna be a very different result! But the differences in how the steaks cook is predictable and "smooth" - the 1" thick steak isn't magically different or better.

No matter how hard this is emphasized, some people just reeeeeallly want to believe that there's magic in pickup locations. There just isn't. If anyone here is in upstate NY, PM me and I'll let you see this firsthand on a test mule. If I ever get to the point where I feel like I can make good representative recordings, I'll share them here.

 

[mambo4]

Make me think of this


good science is about the experiment, theory is just an explanatory framework consistent with experimental results.

My favorite tone here was the "all pickups at once" tone ( that could just be a cuz its louder)
which makes me wonder what pickups designed to spread out more along the string length, or as one large broad flat magnet, could sound like.

 

[g-dude]

No; that is when they sound worst.

And yet Fender made the switch from 3 position to 5 position selector switches because so many people want to use those positions.

My AVRI 57 Strat even came with a five position switch in the case because people want those two positions.

 

[Deleted member 365158]

I posted this in another thread i made.
Never mind the actual playing, about halfway through i switch between the the 2 pickups. Hearing is believing?

 

[Topkat13]

C/o Amazon...there is an informative text called "The Logic Behind Where Pickups Go". There are over 600 pages with detailed photos and diagrams of pick ups and their placement. There is one bass where the pick ups were actually mounted in the case.

 

[shnapper]

No….

 

[groooooove]

I noticed that on my single coil P bass the pickup sits under the III...as in the harmonic I get when pinching just above the polepiece on the G string is a B.
Is it generaly rule(my guess is 'no') that pickups are placed at nodes under the string?
Is there any logic/rule as to where to place pickups on a bass?

from what I've been told,

leo did a lot of testing to get things to sound as good as he could. he likely was just moving things up and down.

changes are certain positions sound good because of their relationship to harmonics. that's why moving a P pickup even the slightest amount seems to disturb the "sweet spot."

i'm always wondering: if you were to make a 33" scale (or whatever) P bass, (or 'ray, or jazz, etc) - do you place the pickup proportional to the harmonics, or use measurements from the bridge, or 12th fret? in other words, how to find the sweet spot on a scale length other than 34".

 

[Killing Floor]

General school of thought is they go where Leo put them on a P and a J and anything else, they go where Leo put them on a Ray. Or if it is a modern design they go where Leo put them at G&L.

 

[Ric5]

When studying a Ric 4003 for a clone build, I realized that the pickups for a 1" spacing at the neck fall almost perfectly on theoretical 24th and 36th fret locations, which cant have been accidental. How much that positioning contributes to the classic Ric tone is a mystery. The older Ric basses had 1/2" pup spacing at the neck, which aligns with nothing, go figure. A few TB'ers have built "mules" with sliding pickup locators as test beds, but as said, as soon as you fret the note, its all out the window. You could probably use a mule to ballpark it to where it generally sounds best, Im guessing thats what Leo Fender did. I have no idea what metric other modern builders are using, probably ballparking it too. Any mule builders out there, how well does it work?

compare the Rickenbacker bass to a Rickenbacker guitar. it is like they the guitar pickup spacing and transposed it to the guitar. they took the neck pickup at the 24th fret and the bridge pickup about 5" back ... on the guitar this pickup would be at the bridge and on the bass it is the 36th fret.

Also notice the bridge pickup is angled this helps to mitigate the phase cancelation on the E string when both pickups are full on, and on the new 4003s5 basses both pickups are angled

 

[Ric5]

 

[Ric5]

 

[Ric5]

 

[Ric5]

 

[BVaccaro]

Well the only logical reason is to have them everywhere

 

[LetItGrowTone]

Focus on low E:
-If you are happy with it, turn your attention to the highs, which are much easier.
-If you aren't happy with it, adjust pickup locations and types until you are.
Which pickup locations and types? Try the usual iconic examples.

But this "happy" is a matter of taste; it's determined by an arrangement of your neurons, uniquely arranged and molded by hearing things you might not even remember. So, there is logic - calculated by this logic circuit - but it's unique to you and inexplicable for as long as we remain wetware. Ok, good luck.

 

[micguy]

Diagrams that show harmonics as fixed standing waves like that are extremely misleading. The harmonic wavelengths don't just "sit" nicely in place in their fraction of the string. These diagrams imply that there are nodes where certain harmonics are essentially not present, which isn't true in practice.

Having studied the Physics of musical instruments at a university - getting my degree in Acoustical Physics, I have to disagree. Harmonics do indeed exist (on strings, in rooms, in pipes, and other places) as "standing waves".

A simple demo can easily show this - pluck the 5th harmonic on a 50's style P bass (which has it's pickup ne fifth of the way from the bridge to the nut. Theory predicts that a pickup located there will be deaf to that harmonic. If you try it, you can hear it acoustically (that frequency is absolutely there on the string, and radiating into the air), but if you listen to the output of the bass, it isn't there - it's listening at a node, and the string, at that frequency doesn't translate there, so the pickup doesn't hear it. It's real, it's Science, and its easily demonstrable.

 

[TheReceder]

If you really curious find a bass that you can change the placement of the pickups... as a side benifit, I suspect this bass would be a candidate for best bass for metal. Norton Merlin 'The Terminator' Bass | Rock N Roll Vintage | Reverb

 

[ctmullins]

moving a P pickup even the slightest amount seems to disturb the "sweet spot."

No, it really doesn’t.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

I'm about to find out about pickup placement from putting a 34" scale neck on a 32" scale body (moving the bridge back to make the 12th fret the halfway point).

This essentially moves the pickup cavities a smidge towards the neck.

 

[littlebun]

I noticed that on my single coil P bass the pickup sits under the III...as in the harmonic I get when pinching just above the polepiece on the G string is a B.
Is it generaly rule(my guess is 'no') that pickups are placed at nodes under the string?
Is there any logic/rule as to where to place pickups on a bass?

Science aside, the closer the bass pickup is to the neck the more hollow it sounds.