Precision pickup properties for BEAD tuning

[subject42]

A friend of mine has volunteered to wind some custom pickups for my P-bass. While he's at it, he's also going to restring it and replace the nut to convert the bass to BEAD tuning. I've read a bunch of threads here on TB about the process, and one thing I saw mentioned, but not fully explained, is that an ideal BEAD build will have pickups that are voiced for it.

What does that entail? I know he's going to use Alnico magnets, but I think the rest of it is up for discussion at this point. If you were going to make an ideal BEAD-tuned P-bass pickup, what would that look like?

If it helps, I mostly play country and Americana for live performance, and a lot of down-tuned Motown during jams.

 

[shoulderpet]

That's odd, I would have thought any decent p pickup would be fine, maybe not anything super dark like a Duncan Spb-2 but I can't see why a regular p pickup wouldn't work absolutely fine.

 

[96tbird]

The E tuning provides enough ultra low that it can destroy a speaker driver in the subsonic. Many of us try to filter out the subsonic. It sucks power and tone.

So a P pickup already covers all the frequency bases. A B tuning doesn't change that truth. I don't see that voicing for that is possible. A dark wind on an E will sound dark on a B. Seems logical to
Me.

 

[manchego_eggo]

I think string choice makes a bigger difference here. When I had a BEAD P back in the day, I remember really liking the Ernie Ball Cobalt Rounds.

FWIW, Geezer Butler generally played in C#, which is only one tone away from B, so his sig pickup may be a good choice. I think the multi pole pups, like Nordstrand NP4A, Bartolini B-Axis, etc. help a bit with definition IME, so that may carry over to the B String.

 

[urkel3000]

Not too hot and farty. More like a GZR, less like a model P. I run my pickups really far away from the strings and it helps with the sound IMO. Neck shims will make a difference in the floppiness of the strings.

All my basses are BEAD and I gig with a p bass a lot, I get compliments on its tone pretty often