Pbass pickup .375” closer to neck?

[Evanforbass]

Hello good people. I’m considering selling one of my P’s to put together a nice Jaguar bass (American Standard model) which has a P/J config. I’ve discovered that the P pickup measures 28.125” from the nut, whereas a traditional P measures 28.5”. My main concern is maintaining an authentic Pbass bass sound option with this bass. Questions for you:
1. Do you think this difference is negligible or noticeable to the point of compromising Pbass purity?
2. My fav P pickup is the Fralin 5% overwind. My assumption is a little tilt in position towards the neck might naturally bump the lows/lo-mids, which is what overwind does. Would the standard Fralin output balance better here?
3. The Jaguar pickguard doesn’t really allow much space to move the P pickup rout .375” to the tradition position. Would it be worth messing with perhaps a J style pickup (pickguard change) that approximates a P sound pretty well? Dimarizo Model J, eg. (As I type this, I don’t feel great about it).

Thanks for your insight and opinions!

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Hello good people. I’m considering selling one of my P’s to put together a nice Jaguar bass (American Standard model) which has a P/J config. I’ve discovered that the P pickup measures 28.125” from the nut, whereas a traditional P measures 28.5”. My main concern is maintaining an authentic Pbass bass sound option with this bass. Questions for you:
1. Do you think this difference is negligible or noticeable to the point of compromising Pbass purity?
2. My fav P pickup is the Fralin 5% overwind. My assumption is a little tilt in position towards the neck might naturally bump the lows/lo-mids, which is what overwind does. Would the standard Fralin output balance better here?
3. The Jaguar pickguard doesn’t really allow much space to move the P pickup rout .375” to the tradition position. Would it be worth messing with perhaps a J style pickup (pickguard change) that approximates a P sound pretty well? Dimarizo Model J, eg. (As I type this, I don’t feel great about it).

Thanks for your insight and opinions!

We've had many threads around here about pickup position vs change in sound. And some of us have done real testing with mule instruments. I've written some long dissertations about it.

Here's a quick test that will demonstrate how and how much the sound will change if you move the pickup a small amount toward the neck:

Pick your favorite P-bass that has your favorite sound, Plug it into your favorite amp and set the EQ how you normally like it. Listen to that sound. Now turn the Bass tone control on the amp up one notch from where it was, and test again. Is that difference in sound enough to matter to you?

That's how the sound changes if you move a P-bass pickup closer to the neck, keeping everything else the same. A small increase in the level of the Bass end of the EQ curve. No change to the mids or highs. And 3/8" isn't much. On my test mule, moving the pickup an inch toward the neck increased the Bass about two notches from center. Moving the pickup an inch toward the bridge was like turning the Bass knob down two notches.

If you build the new bass with the P-pickup 3/8" off of the "perfect" position, you may not even notice the difference. It depends how fussy you are. But if you do notice it, just turn the Bass knob on your amp down a tiny bit to compensate.

 

[mcnach]

Hello good people. I’m considering selling one of my P’s to put together a nice Jaguar bass (American Standard model) which has a P/J config. I’ve discovered that the P pickup measures 28.125” from the nut, whereas a traditional P measures 28.5”. My main concern is maintaining an authentic Pbass bass sound option with this bass. Questions for you:
1. Do you think this difference is negligible or noticeable to the point of compromising Pbass purity?
2. My fav P pickup is the Fralin 5% overwind. My assumption is a little tilt in position towards the neck might naturally bump the lows/lo-mids, which is what overwind does. Would the standard Fralin output balance better here?
3. The Jaguar pickguard doesn’t really allow much space to move the P pickup rout .375” to the tradition position. Would it be worth messing with perhaps a J style pickup (pickguard change) that approximates a P sound pretty well? Dimarizo Model J, eg. (As I type this, I don’t feel great about it).

Thanks for your insight and opinions!

Isn't the Jaguar shorter scale than a Precision?

That's going to shift the relative position of the 'P-bass spot' too.

 

[ardgedee]

Isn't the Jaguar shorter scale than a Precision?

That's going to shift the relative position of the 'P-bass spot' too.

Invalid Link Removed, and Invalid Link Removed. On a quick search I couldn't find info about the American Standard model.

Quick math, rounding the decimals...
32/34 = .9412 # ratio of the two scale lengths
28.5" * .9412 = 26.8242" # applying the ratio to the P bass's pickup position for 32" scale

28.125/28.5 = 0.9868 # ratio of the two pickup positions
34" * .9868 = 33.5512" # applying the pickups' ratio to a standard P bass to estimate appropriate scale

So if you want a P-bass pickup position in a 32" scale bass, the pickup has to be approx. 26.82 inches from the nut. If you want a P-bass with a proportionally accurate pickup position that's 28.125" from the nut, the overall scale would be about 33.55 inch.

 

[Evanforbass]

Thanks for your response. Generally I’d never reject a minor bump in lows on a Pbass, so this is not discouraging. I wonder if going with 500k pots would be useful as well

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Thanks for your response. Generally I’d never reject a minor bump in lows on a Pbass, so this is not discouraging. I wonder if going with 500k pots would be useful as well

If you start changing pickups, like to an overwound one, or changing pot values, then you'll be changing the shape of the EQ curve. That's fine, if you want to do that, but it will be moving the sound farther away from your other P-basses.

 

[Evanforbass]

Invalid Link Removed, and Invalid Link Removed. On a quick search I couldn't find info about the American Standard model.

Quick math, rounding the decimals...
32/34 = .9412 # ratio of the two scale lengths
28.5" * .9412 = 26.8242" # applying the ratio to the P bass's pickup position for 32" scale

28.125/28.5 = 0.9868 # ratio of the two pickup positions
34" * .9868 = 33.5512" # applying the pickups' ratio to a standard P bass to estimate appropriate scale

So if you want a P-bass pickup position in a 32" scale bass, the pickup has to be approx. 26.82 inches from the nut. If you want a P-bass with a proportionally accurate pickup position that's 28.125" from the nut, the overall scale would be about 33.55 inch.

Thanks for chiming in. Yes the American STD Jag is 34”