Pickup Placement

[Bassman1775]

Hello, I am building a Gibson Explorer from scratch. I’ve decided to go with the Bartolini Thunderbird Soapbox pickups (T4CBC) with a Bartolini 3 band EQ preamp, blend and vol. The neck is a 34” scale. My question is where do I place the pickups for the best sound? I’m overwhelmed with the amount of data out there on pickup placement and didn’t see any info on the Bartolini site. I even looked for original measurements on the explorer basses and couldn’t find them. If anyone has any input or measurements without going too far over my head it would be much appreciated.

 

[MPU]

There is no best place for pickups. You can find pickup locations of basses from the net. Just pick the one you like and use those locations.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

My “first thought” response would be that if you want the bass to have an overall P bass character then place one of the pickups in the P bass location. If you want more of a Jazz vibe go with your favored J bass locations. If you’re not sure then nail the body to the garage wall and throw a couple of darts at it.

Ok, the last part is (mostly) a joke and I know you are not using Fender type pickups but, don’t overthink it. On the last bass I finished the pickup is where it is because that’s where the pole pieces lined up with the strings and it sounds pretty good!

 

[sikamikanico]

Someone here posted a spreadsheet with measures of most common placements (it was in the pickups sub forum, I think).

yeah, pick your favorite sounding bass and copy the placement. I’d use some commonly sized pickups such as Bart BC or EMG 35 so that different pickups would fit in easily. Placement of individual pickups is not that important or sensitive (+/- half inch), but different pickup spacings do sound quite different when running pickups together. How it all sounds also depends on the specific pickups (and the bass itself of course)...

You could also make a mule, and try out several options. If you’re building a bolt on bass, just move all the parts to a scrap body or even a 2x4. The key is to have a large opening between the bridge and the neck to move pickups around. Then move pickups around until you’re happy, and hope it will sound similar on the completed bass.

or, make the bass, but without routing pickup cavities. String it up, then suspend pickups from above and move them around until you like the sound. Mark locations, disassemble, rout the cavities, and hope you’ll still like the sound when reassembled.

 

[Jon Clegg]

Someone here posted a spreadsheet with measures of most common placements (it was in
yeah, pick your favorite sounding bass and copy the placement. I’d use some commonly sized pickups such as Bart BC or EMG 35 so that different pickups would fit in easily. Placement of individual pickups is not that important or sensitive (+/- half inch), but different pickup spacings do sound quite different when running pickups together. How it all sounds also depends on the specific pickups (and the bass itself of course)...

You could also make a mule, and try out several options. If you’re building a bolt on bass, just move all the parts to a scrap body or even a 2x4. The key is to have a large opening between the bridge and the neck to move pickups around. Then move pickups around until you’re happy, and hope it will sound similar on the completed bass.

or, make the bass, but without routing pickup cavities. String it up, then suspend pickups from above and move them around until you like the sound. Mark locations, disassemble, rout the cavities, and hope you’ll still like the sound when reassembled.

Yeah I posted a spreadsheet like that some time ago in the pickups forum. Another guy, @RyanKinBK , picked it up and made some improvements/additions.
Bass guitar - Pickup position measurements

Like the others have said it's not as magic as you might think; the nodes will move around as you play up and down the neck anyway. I'm still convinced the Pbass pickup was placed by just putting it halfway between the neck and the bridge

 

[ctmullins]

As others have said, it’s personal preference.

However, I will advise against putting very bright pickups close to the bridge, and also against putting very dark pickups close to the neck.

I have grown to really like putting a very bright/clear pickup right up against the neck. The clarity preserves the high-frequency detail, while the position gives a nice pillowy fullness to the low end.

Since you’re building an Explorer, I’m guessing you might be looking for a more aggressive vibe. If so, shoot for the Thunderbird positions, which are sorta close to the Jazz positions.

 

[TerribleTim68]

Yeah I posted a spreadsheet like that some time ago in the pickups forum. Another guy, @RyanKinBK , picked it up and made some improvements/additions.
Bass guitar - Pickup position measurements

Like the others have said it's not as magic as you might think; the nodes will move around as you play up and down the neck anyway. I'm still convinced the Pbass pickup was placed by just putting it halfway between the neck and the bridge

Wow, that's really interesting. It also shows how, for the most part, there is a sweet spot to that neck pickup that tends to be in the "84% of scale length" range, but it certainly isn't absolute. It would be super cool to also add a column for each make showing what style pickup that was, just a quick note of "P Style" or "J Style" or "Soapbar" or something like that.

 

[rwkeating]

You could build the instrument completely (without finish or pickup cavities or even control cavity) and make a way to suspend the pickups over the top of the strings. You won't be able to pick up the bass and play it, but you can get an idea of what different positions sound like. Here is a picture of what I did.

 

[dwizum]

there is a sweet spot to that neck pickup that tends to be in the "84% of scale length" range, but it certainly isn't absolute

I'm not sure if there is *actually* a sweet spot there, or it is just a traditional spot that gets copied because it's traditional.

I mean, I don't intend to pick at what you said, and at the end of the day, we should all put our pickups where we want - and it's easy to do that by copying placement on an instrument you like, but I feel like a lot of people put a lot of effort into trying to reverse engineer reasons why they're placed in certain spots and everyone just starts assuming the explanations are true when the reality is probably just that Leo put the pickups where he did because it was easier or cheaper or some other practical reason.

 

[TerribleTim68]

I'm not sure if there is *actually* a sweet spot there, or it is just a traditional spot that gets copied because it's traditional.

I mean, I don't intend to pick at what you said, and at the end of the day, we should all put our pickups where we want - and it's easy to do that by copying placement on an instrument you like, but I feel like a lot of people put a lot of effort into trying to reverse engineer reasons why they're placed in certain spots and everyone just starts assuming the explanations are true when the reality is probably just that Leo put the pickups where he did because it was easier or cheaper or some other practical reason.

Yeah, good points. I mean, my B.C. Rich Mockingbird totally blows the whole P pickup placement theory out of the water and puts an extra P in the bridge position. Oh yeah, and they are "backwards" Ps too.So yeah, you can pretty much do whatever you want at the end of the day.

I've never been one to stress over where pickups should go and/or why. It seems to me that with modern EQs and such you can pretty much make anything sound like anything, within reason.