Pickups and pole piece alignment

[kirkdickinson]

I am building a custom 5 string fretless bass and want to put P bass pickups in it. The bridge spacing is 17.5 mm and I am curious about if there is a standard pole spacing for 17.5 mm or if that is calculated on the actual pickup placement?

The bass is still just drawings on my computer, but it looks like from the pickup placement and the taper of the neck, the pole spacing would actually be 16.09mm

Here are some of the drawings of the bass that I am planning.
Rocinante

 

[sikamikanico]

from what I see most often, pickups are spec’ed per bridge spacing. I think traditional placement is assumed, and nut width is ignored. I never did the math, but I presume some sensible variation in nut width and pickup placement wouldn’t impact the spacing over the pickups. Looking at your bass, I think you’re safely within the margins.

In general, for these fender type pickups (two poles per string), the spacing/alignment isn’t very critical. It looks great when strings pass between the poles, but they sound very consistent even if they don’t. Other pickups can be more sensitive to alignment tho.

I see you’re thinking Nordstrands. I’d just give them a call and talk to them about it - they do custom spacing I believe.

 

[kirkdickinson]

from what I see most often, pickups are spec’ed per bridge spacing. I think traditional placement is assumed, and nut width is ignored. I never did the math, but I presume some sensible variation in nut width and pickup placement wouldn’t impact the spacing over the pickups. Looking at your bass, I think you’re safely within the margins.

In general, for these fender type pickups (two poles per string), the spacing/alignment isn’t very critical. It looks great when strings pass between the poles, but they sound very consistent even if they don’t. Other pickups can be more sensitive to alignment tho.

I see you’re thinking Nordstrands. I’d just give them a call and talk to them about it - they do custom spacing I believe.

Yeah, I need to call them. The normal P pickups are wider than for 17.5 bridge so that will have to be custom. I am thinking about using a Bigman or Big Splitman instead of a jazz for the bridge pickup and they already make those for Musicman spacing which is 17.5 mm.

I watched a video of a Nordstrand bass with Carey and Dan Lutz with a P/MM and thought it was awesome.

 

[ex-tension]

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/who-makes-a-17-5mm-spacing-p-pickup-for-four-string-bass.1527985/