Need some advice on P/J fretless pickup placement

[lordradish]

Hey, good people...

Tom Clement is building me a 6 string fretless right now, I'm going with a Nordstrand P and a Big Split (at bridge), which I think will be like a nice, modern P/J sound (Mark Egan's tone is the gold standard for me, realizing that the Pedulla fingerboard plays a part in that).

Tom asked me where I want the pickups placed, in relation to distance to the nut, and I have no frickin' clue. Random musings...

As mentioned, I like modern, clear fretless tones with lots of mwah. I like presence and punch, and I don't want it to sound too upright or woody. I have played J's where the pickup is a bit close to the bridge and this results in a general wimpy sound. I do use the bridge p/u a lot, so I want it to be strong and full of mwah. I like dialing in some of the P to balance it out.

Any ideas as to where things should go? I've looked at stuff on Fenders and other ideas, but I still am flying blind here. If you do have a suggestion, could you tell me the specifics of why you feel that way?

Thanks so much in advance.

 

[dwizum]

Just curious - when you've asked your builder for input on where to put them (based on the preferences you're expressing here) - did they have any suggestions for you to start with?

Most people seem to treat PJs as a P bass with the option to blend the J in. Sounds like you're approaching it from the opposite perspective. You mention playing some basses with the J too close to the bridge, and not liking how thin they sounded. Have you played basses with the pickup a little further away, which you liked?

On a fretless, much of the tone you're describing (especially the "lots of mwah" part) will come from setup and playing style. Pickups and pickup locations are important of course, but fretless adds a dimension that fretted basses don't have, so you have to look at the whole picture. Pickup location really boils down to output level and bass frequency roll off. As you move closer to the bridge, output drops, and you lose bass frequencies first. Keep going closer to the bridge and the frequency at which the signal drops starts moving upwards. A pickup kinda-close to the bridge doesn't sound more middy because there are more mids, it sounds more middy because there's less low end in the signal. The other factor to keep in mind is comb filtering when you're playing with both pickups on. Any time you have two coils sensing the same string, you'll lose some frequencies because the coils will be slightly out of phase with each other. The further away from each other the two pickups are, the bigger this loss will sound.

Based on your preference for solo'ing the J and sometimes blending in the P, for me, this would be very simple. Find a bass where you like the bridge J solo'd, and use that as your J position. Based on your comments this will probably be the 60's position, assuming you're playing typical Fender clones in your comparison. Then just plop the P in the normal P spot, or move it forwards or backwards if you want more or less mid scoop when combining the two.

 

[lordradish]

Just curious - when you've asked your builder for input on where to put them (based on the preferences you're expressing here) - did they have any suggestions for you to start with?

Most people seem to treat PJs as a P bass with the option to blend the J in. Sounds like you're approaching it from the opposite perspective. You mention playing some basses with the J too close to the bridge, and not liking how thin they sounded. Have you played basses with the pickup a little further away, which you liked?

On a fretless, much of the tone you're describing (especially the "lots of mwah" part) will come from setup and playing style. Pickups and pickup locations are important of course, but fretless adds a dimension that fretted basses don't have, so you have to look at the whole picture. Pickup location really boils down to output level and bass frequency roll off. As you move closer to the bridge, output drops, and you lose bass frequencies first. Keep going closer to the bridge and the frequency at which the signal drops starts moving upwards. A pickup kinda-close to the bridge doesn't sound more middy because there are more mids, it sounds more middy because there's less low end in the signal. The other factor to keep in mind is comb filtering when you're playing with both pickups on. Any time you have two coils sensing the same string, you'll lose some frequencies because the coils will be slightly out of phase with each other. The further away from each other the two pickups are, the bigger this loss will sound.

Based on your preference for solo'ing the J and sometimes blending in the P, for me, this would be very simple. Find a bass where you like the bridge J solo'd, and use that as your J position. Based on your comments this will probably be the 60's position, assuming you're playing typical Fender clones in your comparison. Then just plop the P in the normal P spot, or move it forwards or backwards if you want more or less mid scoop when combining the two.

Surprisingly, he didn't offer a lot of suggestions at first, and after I wrote back with what essentially I wrote here, he did mention the 60's Jazz position.

What I'm confused about is, from what I've read, P/Js tended to not have both pickups in their stock positions (meaning stock P where it is on a regular P, with the stock J where it would be on a J), due to not wanting them too close. So I'm fine with the J in the 60's position. I'm just not so sure where to put the P.

I don't really have a lot of options to go play stuff where I live, unfortunately, and with the exception of my EBMM, all my stuff is custom, so I don't really have much to go with there. The local music store basically has a lot of entry-level stuff and not much more. My other fretless is just two Aero humbuckers, so I don't think that would make for a good guide.

I like the thunk that a P provides... I don't think I'll be playing too much with only the P, unless I'm doing old-school jazz and want the URB tone.

Thanks for your advice here. Just curious about what you think of my P musings.

 

[dwizum]

In my observations it seems like pickup spacing between the pickups is pretty consistent on PJs, and most essentially have the 70's bridge J position and the normal P position. Those few that have the 60's bridge J position seem to usually move the P towards the neck a little. So the spacing between the pickups is maintained and both pickups just shift a little in either direction.

This is a timely thread for me as I'm working on a PJ design and I have similar goals to yours. I want to approach this as a regular two pickup bass, not as a P bass that I can blend some bridge J into. I don't want a ton of scoop and I don't want the P to become so boomy that it gets overpowering. As such I'm using 60's bridge J and the normal P position, which puts the two pickups a hair closer together than they normally are on a PJ. Mine will be fretted but I'd take the same approach if they were going to be fretless.

 

[lordradish]

In my observations it seems like pickup spacing between the pickups is pretty consistent on PJs, and most essentially have the 70's bridge J position and the normal P position. Those few that have the 60's bridge J position seem to usually move the P towards the neck a little. So the spacing between the pickups is maintained and both pickups just shift a little in either direction.

This is a timely thread for me as I'm working on a PJ design and I have similar goals to yours. I want to approach this as a regular two pickup bass, not as a P bass that I can blend some bridge J into. I don't want a ton of scoop and I don't want the P to become so boomy that it gets overpowering. As such I'm using 60's bridge J and the normal P position, which puts the two pickups a hair closer together than they normally are on a PJ. Mine will be fretted but I'd take the same approach if they were going to be fretless.

I think I'm going with the 60's j position, and I'll let the luthier figure out the best position for the P. What's too close? I'm always confused about this because I hear about phasing issues, but I also see a fair number of basses with two pickups very close to one another.

 

[dwizum]

In a sense there is no such thing as too close. The pickups will work OK pushed right up next to each other. Consider that a typical side-by-side humbucker is, literally, two single coil pickups placed right next to each other. When pickups are so close that they're literally touching, there IS technically some impact on the tone, because the magnets from one pickup will alter the magnetic field of the other pickup, but this is a very minor impact and not inherently undesirable.

The only practical element where "too close" comes into play is personal preference with respect to tone. As the pickups get closer together, they will sound more alike, and you'll get less of the expected, somewhat desirable scoop from comb filtering. There's a point at which the pickups will sound so similar that it becomes pointless to have two separate pickups - you might as well literally replace them with a humbucker. Think: Musicman stingray.

The spacing you typically see in a Jazz bass or in an average PJ is common because - to an extent - people just copy what existed before them. The pickups are far apart enough that they have distinct tones, but not so far apart that you're pushing the limits of what's usable. It's a good, middle of the road spacing - there's no magic, it's just "nice." And it's totally reasonable to tweak a little in either direction, you're not going to get something unusable unless you go far away from typical spacing.