Anyone done a J J J bass starting with a regular J bass and then adding a third J pup in the "mudbucker" position? I am adding a mudbucker to my P bass and am thinking about adding a third J pup to my jazz. The main question I have is about hum cancellation. If I stick with single coils, do I want to use a bridge pup in the far neck position (so that it would hum cancel in the normal way when I run the middle and far neck together)? I did not measure yet, but am guessing the pole spacing would be closer if I used a J neck pup. If I did that do I just have to reverse the polarity of the leads to make it hum cancel with the middle? Thanks.
You could do it Strat style, with the middle pickup RWRP from the neck and bridge. The neck and bridge will not humcancel together, however. Simply swapping the leads of a pickup will put the signal out of phase with the signals from the other pickups, giving you a very thin tone. You need to also reverse the magnet polarity. Perhaps you should consider humbuckers.
im not super technicaly minded on the subject.but, outside of MAJOR mods. its still gonna sound like a j bass. ive tried everything, and they always sound more or less the same. just my experience.
The godin shifter has 3 single coil pickups and I haven't heard people complain about hum with them. Perhaps you could look into the setup of the Shifter?
Big Al Pickups: Standard - Single Humbucking with ceramic magnets; Optional - Triple Single coil Neodymium magnets
Thanks for the comments. I'll probably add a mudbucker to my P first and then maybe do Mud/P/J to the Jazz at some point.
Yes, I actually just had a thread about this three days ago. There is still an unanswered question in it, and if someone can help me with it, I can start drawing up plans, and hopefully get started on the bass soon.