Pickups

[TomA1234]

Hi,
I was wondering, How many pickups can you put on a guitar and it still work? The reason I am asking this is I am planning on building a bass and want to know how many pickups I could get away with putting on it.

 

[cnltb]

have a look at loewenherz basses.
They have up to 12 if I'm not mistaken...

 

[David1234]

You can put as many as will fit in the body, plus a piezo bridge, plus build an arch over the top and put another layer.

you cuold probably cram about ten or more pickups in the bass. But you won't get a lot of control over it. Will each one get a volume control of its very own?

For a while I owned a bass with three J pickups, and a volume for each, and it was great.I probably wouldn't go more than 3 myself, but if you want to be extreme check out Traben's Bootsy Star bass with 5 J pickups.

Do you want to keep this bass for a long time? If so, try not to make it too outlandish, and try to include the classic pickup locations in your design somewhere and make sure it will be easy to get a classic selection (say the 70's fender jazz positions) with the flick of a single switch or knob. Don't make your bass so complicated that you can't use all the best bits without a minute's fiddling.

 

[Stealth]

have a look at loewenherz basses.
They have up to 12 if I'm not mistaken...

Well, the model I'm looking at has six coils all in all, that's still a lot of combinations.

 

[Korladis]

You can put as many pickups in as you have space for. Controls for them might be a bit of an issue though, unless the body is absolutely huge.

How many do you really need, though? I don't like only having one pickup, but I can get an enormous amount of variation with two pickups.

 

[vbasscustom]

you could have like 6 frets and make the rest of the bass body. and then ahve 14 pickups.

 

[NKBassman]

Wouldn't you eventually run into problems with string pull messing up the intonation and sustain?

 

[TomA1234]

Thanks for the info guys (I wonder if I could manage to put 20 pickups on a bass)

 

[JanVanHove]

use single string pickups...

5-strings, 4-pickups per string...

A nightmare to wire, and not much wood left to hold the bass together, but hey...

 

[vbasscustom]

lol, nahh, you would be fine. although, with all that magnetic pull, you strings might be a little bit sucked down into the pups, and not play very well at all

 

[cnltb]

Well, the model I'm looking at has six coils all in all, that's still a lot of combinations.

my bass has one pickup straight to the socket.
No combinations but a very good sounding/playing instrument that I use for all I do without missing anything at all.

If you want that many pickup thing,whihc can work well enaugh. I'd just try to get a chance to try an instrument which has all the pickups ans see if you benefit from it /like it.

 

[Rocky McD]

On a Fender Precision, you could get up to 13 Jazz pickups between the neck and the bridge, if you dont use the plastic covers with the screw tabs. You may have a little wiring problem though.

 

[cnltb]

Do however consider magnetic pull and cancellations of harmonics...both may become issues if you put many pickups onto your bass.
One pickup is likely to sound more "open" and "natural",than many pickups.