Opinions wanted on pickup placement

[Tommy Tourbus]

What would you guys have to say about the differences in pickup placement on these 2 USA BC Rich Bich 8 string basses. The first one is a newish one, the 2nd a vintage model. The diff is where the fretboard joins the body on each. It extends into the body farther down on the newer one which has caused them to place the pickups right on top of each other. Is this preferred or non-preferred VS the pickup placement on the vintage model? Both are the same short 30" scale.

 

[darkstorm]

On the darker colored one it looks like the bridge P pups are a little further away from the bridge then on the lighter orangy one. That further distance is very preferable imo cause otherwise its fairly easy for the D&G string side to sound overly trebly. One the darker colored one they could have put the distance between sets the same as on the orangy one. On that one they just chose not to. Anyway the pup placement on the darker colored one is better for reason mentioned above imo. That one also looks nicer color wise to me. The fretboard joins the body the same on both best I can tell. Pic angle just makes it look maybe max of 1/2 inch diff. Cause when you take into account the curve of upper body to neck and look at the lower bout it looks like they both connect same place by 21st fret.

Excellent 8 string basses. I wish theyd rerelease the bich bass in NT import version for 4 or 8 string version.

 

[Tommy Tourbus]

The dark (new) one joins the body a full fret lower than the lighter (vintage) one. I'm not going by just that pic, I've compared pics of other vintage Bich 8 stringers w/pics of the modern ones. They are building them with this difference now, not sure why. I hear you on the advantage of the bridge pup placement. What do you think of the neck pup placement diffs? Any idea why they would shorten the neck, i.e.; change where the neck/fretboard meets the body? Just trying to determine if they had a good reason for making these changes.

 

[darkstorm]

For the neck pup then, hummm. My warlock has its pup (DG side) at about 3 and 3/4 inches from the front of the G string saddle. Perfect place for me. Not quite as close as fender puts them on their P basses. Gives a fuller tone bass wise with plenty of treble available both when it was passive (Id roll the tone down just slightly then and full up for slightly more cutting tone. Of course useing active 2band eq on it now. For both the sound improvement LowZ gives the dimarzio P pups and a little tone tweaking now and then for both bass and treble. Whats the distance from G string saddle on the one your concidering? It looks like the orangy one has the neck pup fuirther from the bridge between the two. I think Id go for the darker colored top one myself. Its further away from bridge then fender puts their P, but perhaps not as much further away as the orange bassses? The dark ones probably closer to where mine is on my warlock.

BTW to the best of my knowledge I have the only import warlock single P pup bass with it placed as mine is. Its done same position as on their new eagle 1 basses. I easlly get anything from just dark deep bass to as much trebly lead like voice as desired without it been harshness prone like closer to bridge could get. Lol. For the latter I leave treble control flat and just roll off the bass some with 2band eq.

If I was going to add a bridge P set to mine itd be like on the darker one. So not so near the bridge.

 

[darkstorm]

Ahhh, now I know why the darker one looked familiar to me. Same pup positioning as the one I have a wallpaper of.

 

[Tommy Tourbus]

I have that wallpaper on my computer as well, haha!