P Bass pickup problem

[Wolfenstein666]

I have a MIA Fender P. The pole pieces stick up above the black pup casing, and if I'm not careful my fingers will touch them and make a horrific noise out of the amp. Any ideas how to tackle this? Should I just tighten the screws on the sides of the pup and lower them?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Obligatory picture :

 

[Watchootognbout]

Lower the pickups and turn up your volume to compensate.

 

[Wolfenstein666]

That's just done by the screws on either side of the pup, right?

 

[tzohn]

This happens because the poles need grounding. Alternatively you can cover the protruding poles with tape or paint them with enamel paint.
Pickup height adjustment screws are not meant to deal with these issues.

 

[Bassamatic]

I also had that problem with a bass.
Ideal solution is to to ground them.
I put a couple of layers of clear fingernail polish on the pole pieces and it helped a lot.

 

[Wolfenstein666]

I also had that problem with a bass.
Ideal solution is to to ground them.
I put a couple of layers of clear fingernail polish on the pole pieces and it helped a lot.

Never thought of that. I might have to try that.

 

[tzohn]

Good info:

P Bass Pickup Height

 

[bassbully]

I put a piece of black electrical tape over mine.

 

[Wolfenstein666]

I put a piece of black electrical tape over mine.

Also not a bad idea.

Glad I'm not the only one that's experienced this. I've never run into this problem before, I thought it was user error.

 

[Dbassmon]

If the pickup height is correct, you should not have a problem unless you have some crazy technique that would cause you to slam strings into the pole pieces. There is sufficient clearance.

 

[Wolfenstein666]

If the pickup height is correct, you should not have a problem unless you have some crazy technique that would cause you to slam strings into the pole pieces. There is sufficient clearance.

Never adjusted the pup height, same as it came new from Sweetwater. The Strings don't really hit the poles, its my thumb from thumb muting will contact the pole and make a weird noise. I'm going to try lowering the pups a bit, and if that doesn't work I'll tape over the top.

 

[johnson79]

Clear nail polish would be my choice.

 

[bassfiddlesteve]

You can lower the pole pieces by removing the cover and placing some sort of spacer in between the pickup and the plastic cover. You can use something like a cut up gift card or guitar pick. I used some plastic collar stays of different thicknesses to get the pole peices flush with the covers on my 50th Anniversary Jazz Bass.

- Steve

 

[Wolfenstein666]

You can lower the pole pieces by removing the cover and placing some sort of spacer in between the pickup and the plastic cover. You can use something like a cut up gift card or guitar pick. I used some plastic collar stays or different thicknesses to get the pole peices flush with the cover on my 50th Anniversary Jazz Bass.

- Steve

Thanks for this, this is a great idea. Never would've thought of it!

 

[bassfiddlesteve]

Thanks for this, this is a great idea. Never would've thought of it!

You're welcome. Be careful handling the pickups with the covers off since the windings will be exposed.

- Steve

 

[DiabolusInMusic]

As mentioned above, your pickup poles need to be grounded. It is a fairly simple fix.

Pole Piece Hum: A Grounding Tutorial

I have used both the nail polish trick and the electrical tape trick to great success. I had a bass develop this issue after a fall. I didn't have time to fix it before a jam so I just put some electrical tape over the poles. I did resolve the issue but I liked the look of black tape on my covers so much that I went out and bought several different colours of electrical tape. Sometimes I will tape over my poles strictly for image now.

 

[Wolfenstein666]

As mentioned above, your pickup poles need to be grounded. It is a fairly simple fix.

Pole Piece Hum: A Grounding Tutorial

I have used both the nail polish trick and the electrical tape trick to great success. I had a bass develop this issue after a fall. I didn't have time to fix it before a jam so I just put some electrical tape over the poles. I did resolve the issue but I liked the look of black tape on my covers so much that I went out and bought several different colours of electrical tape. Sometimes I will tape over my poles strictly for image now.

Would love to ground these, that would be my preferred fix. However, I am 100% tech illiterate and would probably screw it up.

 

[DiabolusInMusic]

Would love to ground these, that would be my preferred fix. However, I am 100% tech illiterate and would probably screw it up.

You can do it in 3 easy steps:

Step 1) source "conductive adhesive copper tape" from Ebay or Amazon. The adhesive has to be conductive.
Step 2) apply tape to underside of pickup poles
Step 3) connect wire to tape. Ideally this would be soldered but since your "tech illiterate" I would just tape the wire onto the poles and the ground (be it shielding or through the electronics) Admittedly, this isn't the best or most secure connection but if you get it on good that tape will hold for years.

If you are not up to the task just hit up your tech. It should be an hour of bench time at absolute maximum. It is a 30-minute job going slowly.

 

[Wolfenstein666]

You can do it in 3 easy steps:

Step 1) source "conductive adhesive copper tape" from Ebay or Amazon. The adhesive has to be conductive.
Step 2) apply tape to underside of pickup poles
Step 3) connect wire to tape. Ideally this would be soldered but since your "tech illiterate" I would just tape the wire onto the poles and the ground (be it shielding or through the electronics) Admittedly, this isn't the best or most secure connection but if you get it on good that tape will hold for years.

If you are not up to the task just hit up your tech. It should be an hour of bench time at absolute maximum. It is a 30-minute job going slowly.

I'll probably take it over to Sweetwater. I really don't trust myself with that stuff. I can do my own set ups but that's as far as I go. Any modding or electronic work is beyond me.

 

[Batmensch]

Probably because it was a cheap P-bass pickup, but I had one that I could move the pole pieces as high or as low as I wanted. I'm pretty sure it wasn't intentional on the part of the manufacturer.