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One bass a year
- Thread starter 13ghosts
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Out of curiosity, I am considering installing a filter preamp. I don't think there are any specific requirements for the number of windings of multi-coil pickups. At least I haven't found any specific information at www.underhillbass.com, lusithanddevices.com and www.jtex.ca. I'll write to them and see what they recommend. Underhill and Lusithand offer special options for multi-coil pickups.
Turner's multi-coil pickups seem to have 10,000 windings. My current ones have 7800 windings with 42 AWG, which I'm quite happy with. I'm currently thinking about winding two more sets of pickups, but with 41 and 43 AWG. Then I should have enough material for a detailed sound demo...
If you know any other filter preamp candidates besides Underhill, Lusithand and JTex, please let me know.
Turner's multi-coil pickups seem to have 10,000 windings. My current ones have 7800 windings with 42 AWG, which I'm quite happy with. I'm currently thinking about winding two more sets of pickups, but with 41 and 43 AWG. Then I should have enough material for a detailed sound demo...
If you know any other filter preamp candidates besides Underhill, Lusithand and JTex, please let me know.
I like them both - the green one feels more 'traditional retro' and the dark blue more 'futurist retro' if that makes any sense. They seem to scratch different itches, so I'm not sure I would rate one above the other.
Since they are both offset designs, have you tried the same overall design but with a symmetrical lower bout? (Like a p-bass)
Thanks Beej, good idea, I will draw such a design and post it here. I had looked at it once before I built the green one, and I didn't like it that much. But that was a while ago....I like them both - the green one feels more 'traditional retro' and the dark blue more 'futurist retro' if that makes any sense. They seem to scratch different itches, so I'm not sure I would rate one above the other.
I'm thinking about using active electronics for the next bass. Not because I don't like the current passive electronics, on the contrary, but just for the fun of experimenting.
My daring plan: one filter preamp per string with a balance pot. I contacted Underhill, as they seem to have the most flexible modules, to ask if this would be possible with their modules. It would be a bit crowded with 8 pots and 4 of them stacked. But hey...
What do you think? Probably overkill, but worth a try?
Do you know any other providers of filter preamps besides www.underhillbass.com, lusithanddevices.com and www.jtex.ca?
My daring plan: one filter preamp per string with a balance pot. I contacted Underhill, as they seem to have the most flexible modules, to ask if this would be possible with their modules. It would be a bit crowded with 8 pots and 4 of them stacked. But hey...
What do you think? Probably overkill, but worth a try?
Do you know any other providers of filter preamps besides www.underhillbass.com, lusithanddevices.com and www.jtex.ca?
It seems the main unique feature is the variety of tones you get because of the nearly infinite variety of PU placements.
If you want to get extravagant, maybe make a mono/stereo output option?
You could have trim pots to set level and pan for each individual PU, accessible in back.
Then maybe a preamp in front of each stereo output?
If you want to get extravagant, maybe make a mono/stereo output option?
You could have trim pots to set level and pan for each individual PU, accessible in back.
Then maybe a preamp in front of each stereo output?
One of my first ideas was to be able to mix each string separately in a DAW. For this purpose I bought 4 Cycfi Nu pickups. Then the whole madness started and the Cycfis are still unused (but will be). In one version, I would like to be able to connect the pickups electrically via a microcontroller, so that I can output them in different configurations.
In principle, I can also implement your idea with the idea from my previous post. Let's see...
I'm thinking about how to combine my multi-coil setup with filter preamps.
Before I started working on my own pickups, my original idea was to run CycFi Nu pickups for each string separately into a DAW. Since the sound variety with my movable pickups is great and interesting, I now had the idea to expand this to be able to shape the sound of each string even more individually and directly in the instrument.
These are some possible options:
Certainly a bit unusual, and I don't expect to find ready-made modules for such a setup on the market.
Especially in case of one pickup for each string, active mixing would probably be required. A big disadvantage of such a setup would be the at least eight potentiometers (balance & frequency) and, depending on the module, four additional switches. It would not be very practical and also difficult to reproduce certain sounds, especially in combination with movable pickups. The costs would also be considerable. Nevertheless, I still like the idea!
I got in touch with Tim from Underhill and Jerry from JTEX. I thank them both for their valuable and detailed answers! Great support!! Their suggestions were different, based on their specific modules.
Currently my idea is to build a bass with movable pickups and interchangeable preamp setups.
Before I started working on my own pickups, my original idea was to run CycFi Nu pickups for each string separately into a DAW. Since the sound variety with my movable pickups is great and interesting, I now had the idea to expand this to be able to shape the sound of each string even more individually and directly in the instrument.
These are some possible options:
Certainly a bit unusual, and I don't expect to find ready-made modules for such a setup on the market.
Especially in case of one pickup for each string, active mixing would probably be required. A big disadvantage of such a setup would be the at least eight potentiometers (balance & frequency) and, depending on the module, four additional switches. It would not be very practical and also difficult to reproduce certain sounds, especially in combination with movable pickups. The costs would also be considerable. Nevertheless, I still like the idea!
I got in touch with Tim from Underhill and Jerry from JTEX. I thank them both for their valuable and detailed answers! Great support!! Their suggestions were different, based on their specific modules.
Currently my idea is to build a bass with movable pickups and interchangeable preamp setups.
- a) one conventional setup with two preamps - i.e. one preamp for the neck and one for the bridge pickup(s)
- b) one setup with two preamps, but one for the E and A strings and one for the D and G strings.
I vote a) because it could be difficult to make even sound thru all strings if you have separate preamp for separate pair of strings. Preamp per pickup however is a very powerful tone shaper.
Difficult because of a consistent sound or a consistent volume? But sure, you can certainly ruin the sound with such a setup.
But, as a trivial example, for the E and A strings you could go more in the direction of a P bass and for the G and D strings more in the direction of a J bass, or vice versa.
Consistent sound. I’m not sure I’d like bass riff that goes between A and D string and the strings have very different sound. Then again you can get them sound the same but what’s the point of two different sounding string pairs then?
I see your point. But moving the pickups already changes the sound for each string. That's what's interesting about it.
At least I want to try it out. So I'll take the current bass and experiment with different setups. Then I'll decide what to put in the new bass.
I hope I'll finally manage to make a few recordings and post them here.
Something I've always wanted to experiment with: A long narrow pickup coil, one for each string, inline with the string. Like 4" long, with multiple round magnets, or one long bar magnet. A single long coil around the whole thing. Or maybe two stacked coils to make it humbucking. I wonder what it would sound like, covering that large of the length of the string? All those sounds at once?
