Pickup / position testing setup

[eddododo]

I have a test body with a large cavity routed out so I can test out pickups and positions..

Just wondering if anyone had an elegant setup for this they'd like to share- coming up with the right search terms for this has been tricky so far

Im thinking those screw-down terminal strips for the electronics, and maybe Velcro for the pickups, though I don't love the latter idea

 

[Bruce Johnson]

I have a test body with a large cavity routed out so I can test out pickups and positions..

Just wondering if anyone had an elegant setup for this they'd like to share- coming up with the right search terms for this has been tricky so far

Im thinking those screw-down terminal strips for the electronics, and maybe Velcro for the pickups, though I don't love the latter idea

I don't know if I'd call it elegant, but here's the bench mule that I made up when I was developing out the pickup system for my Series IV Scroll Basses, back in 2005. It's pretty dumb and simple; a rectangle of plywood for the body, with various wood blocks screwed down to it to hold things in the proper positions. The neck is a leftover scrap blank, only partially completed. A scrap wood fingerboard, cut to the correct scale length and radius, with a simple zero fret, nut and tuners. I didn't even bother shaping the back of the neck.

For the electronics, I mounted the components in a simple bent aluminum box with the pots on top and the connections on the front. Those red and black round knobs on the front are called Binding Posts, standard old-school electronics lab hardware. A real simple way to quickly connect wires. The pair on the far right hold the capacitor of the tone circuit.

This is where I experimented with the details of the pickups. Swapping parts, moving them around, etc. The thing under the bridge is my first-generation Mechanical Percussive Pickup, a story in itself. On the left is the Quad pickup, a different approach to a multi-coil.

A simple mule rig like this is fine for experimenting with pickup position. A base board for the body, a leftover neck, a bridge from the junk box. Just get all the dimensions and geometry right.

 

[Jon Clegg]

I built a stupidly over-engineered one here

 

[mongo2]

I use a plank with a neck attached and a bridge on a block. Similar to Leo Fender's test rig here...

https://www.bassesbyleo.com/images/gl_leo/testbed.jpg

 

[Dadagoboi]

I use this one for testing pickups as well as necks and bridges for 4/5/8/10/12 string basses. I call it 'Francis'.

...you said elegant. This is the "simple/ effective" part of that definition. "Neat /stylish" not so much .

 

[eddododo]

I use this one for testing pickups as well as necks and bridges for 4/5/8/10/12 string basses. I call it 'Francis'.

View attachment 3670495

...you said elegant. This is the "simple/ effective" part of that definition. "Neat /stylish" not so much .

That's pretty close to what I'm doing... do you just screw down the pickups?

That's the biggest part I want a clever solution to, being able to quickly and easily move the pickups around.. that and the fact that every pickup screw I've ever owned seems to be made of a hard cheese

 

[Dadagoboi]

That's pretty close to what I'm doing... do you just screw down the pickups?

That's the biggest part I want a clever solution to, being able to quickly and easily move the pickups around.. that and the fact that every pickup screw I've ever owned seems to be made of a hard cheese

I know what you mean about pickup screws! These are the ones I use. Tough steel and they countersink into the nickel silver covers on almost all my basses. They're worth the money!

GS-3312 Soap Bar Pickup Mounting Screws

 

[eddododo]

I know what you mean about pickup screws! These are the ones I use. Tough steel and they countersink into the nickel silver covers on almost all my basses. They're worth the money!

GS-3312 Soap Bar Pickup Mounting Screws

Thanks for that!

 

[eddododo]

In a theme of trying to contribute better to the threads I start-



Here's what I came up with. I needed something i could hold and play, and I had already routed the neck pocket and a few things to test the neck anyway.

Pictures explain it all, including the kludgey electronics hookup

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Here's what I learned from playing around with the position of a single pickup in a bench mule, pasted from an old thread:

Pickup location changes the overall shape of the EQ curve. Keeping everything else the same, as you slide the pickup toward the bridge, the level of the bottom end of the frequency curve goes down. It's as if you went over to the amp and began turning the Bass knob down. Moving the pickup toward the bridge doesn't turn up the Treble, it just turns down the Bass. It doesn't change the clarity or muddiness or warmth. It just brings down the level of everything on that side of the curve.

That's what pickup location does. It's a way to adjust the bottom end of the overall EQ curve of the instrument. Around the middle of the body, you get the full inherent range of the pickup. Moving towards the neck boosts the bass a little bit. Moving towards the bridge trims the bass.

That's why sliding pickup rail instruments, particularly basses, have never really caught on. It sounds like a cool idea, but once you've played around with pickup position, you'll find that it's easier to get the same effect by adjusting the Bass knob on the preamp or amp. We, the bass builders, play around with pickup position to set the baseline sound of our instruments. But, as a player, it isn't very useful as an adjustment.

My overall philosophy is to build the bass to naturally have a full, wide range, even, and pleasing sound. Give the player everything the bass is capable of. They can then use the amp controls or pedals to trim back parts of the sound to fit the particular situation.

Yeah, yeah, I know all about harmonics. Guitar people go crazy trying to find the perfect pickup location to emphasize the harmonics of a particular key. Electric bass pickups generally have a wider area of sensitivity along the string. The precise location isn't that critical to making harmonics ring. In general, I found that moving most bass pickups around within a 1" range made very little difference.

Most of the arguments about finding the Sweet Spot of pickup position is about exactly replicating the sound of some other bass.