Hi everyone, I have a Yamaha BB424X and want to replace the P style pickup. Yamaha does their own proprietary pickups with non standard dimensions for the pickup covers. I don't know if this is on purpose to not allow for after market pickup upgrades or if they create pickups specifically for a certain bass assuming that those are the perfect match and don't need to be replaced. Anyway, this is not a big problem because you can seperate the pickups from the covers with a little bit of force since they are only glued in. Most manufacturers produce the pickups with the covers loosely on top and that's perfect in my case. Now the problem on my search for a replacement is: Almost none of the known pickup manufacturers shows the spacing of the pole pieces on the pickup. Only Dimarzio does it: http://www.dimarzio.com/sites/default/files/diagrams/pbcovdim.pdf I can put the pickups into my Yamaha covers but need to make sure they are spaced like the DiMarzio Model P with .38 inches from pole to pole. So is it safe to say that almost all P style replacement pickups have a pole piece spacing of .38 inches? Thanks and regards, Ben
i recently searched and purchased both P and J style pick ups for one of my PJ's and i could have used info on pole spacing, too. i'm sorry that i don't have the information you are seeking, but i'll be interested in the responses you get on the thread: as i'm thinking about an upgrade for another/different instrument. i've never measured pole spacing but i have been disappointed when the poles seemed like a 'non-match' in some upgrade attempts. so: good question, IMO. sorry for my ignorance, but thanks for the thread!
just measured P pups on two instruments with exposed pole pieces: calig passive P pup = 1 cm between pole pieces chinese made passive P pup = 1 cm between pole pieces i measured these without benefit of removing the pups from the instrument, and by 'eye', but .38 inches = .96 cm, so maybe it's a 'universal' more or less (?) i guess we'll see!
