Show us your 3 pickup basses!

[morebassbaby]

You say those are Chi-Sonic but they look like MM's??

Don't you dare apologize for any of those basses! All of them are gorgeous.

Could you please elaborate on the pickup details?

Thanks very much!
The pickups are Chibuckers. Part of the reason they have sort of been discontinued or at least frowned upon by the people at Hanson/Lakland is that those shiny chrome surrounds are a major Pita. Apparently epoxy bleeds all over and it sucks. Carl said he could do them if we put them in MM style shells.
Many tones abound. The front pickup gives a woofy P bass sound and the middle pickup is pretty dang close to stingray position. With those soloed they do great imitations of the respective basses, but there is so much else in there. The single coil positions on each of the pickup have plenty of edge, but are thinner sounding than a typical single coil. There's a fair bit of signal loss as well going from buckers to singles. Because of this, I almost always keep a bucker on then any position or combination has no volume drop.
3 pickup basses are the way to go! You have full control of your mids and character of your bass. All my basses are passive and with having that much power over pickup selection, I doubt I'll ever be looking for an active preamp in a bass again. Really nice stuff!

 

[JIO]

Freshly redone - mid 90's maple bodied, 18v pre/stereo Peavy B-Quad 4 w/Modulus phenolic/carbon 24 (lined) fretless neck, Optima 24k gold plated strings and Gildaxe variegated black-gold leaf/gold dust treatment w/amber gloss clear-coat. Final finishing by Pat Wilkins. The 3rd pu is a Fishman piezo in the Wilkinson bridge and the soap bars were Bartolini designed. An awesome tone monster.

 

[cjj]

 

[Doner Designs]

View attachment 468131

Is that a Ric body that has been refinished or a Ric neck with custom body (or custom wings)? Either way, she's a beauty. Controls VVV?

 

[cjj]

It's basically a stock Rickenbacker 4004Cii with an extra pickup. It's not quite finished yet, but it'll have triple stacked pots for V/T V/T V/T. I think. I always find I pretty much NEVER turn the tone controls down so I'm really wondering if I should just forget 'em...

 

[cjj]

Here's a picture of it with just 2 pickups and stacked pots...

 

[JIO]

It's basically a stock Rickenbacker 4004Cii with an extra pickup. It's not quite finished yet, but it'll have triple stacked pots for V/T V/T V/T. I think. I always find I pretty much NEVER turn the tone controls down so I'm really wondering if I should just forget 'em...

Especially w/3 pu's, tonal variety could be easily accessed and modulated w/stacked pots like you described. (V/T x 3) Personally I would prefer that but I know some players do all their tone shaping at the amp so anything goes.

 

[Henrythe8]

Wow... that Ric is a beaut'... And the gilded Peavey is just... :love:
I'm almost ashamed to put the progress on my Franken Toby. (Or Tobyenstein ? )

Anyway, near completion after receiving the stuff from Banzaï music :
The three DP148 are fitting just nice, and the drillings of the OEM bridge are the same as the Babicz (thank you Fender Standards on an Epiphone bass )

The Gotoh are direct replacemetn also, no need to drill other screw holes... except that I did not like the "right" tuners placement. I tried an angled, Warwick style and did not like it either.
So my 10yo son finally found the solution :

I shileded and grounded the cavities for th p'ups, and grounded the bridge, ans installed the P'ups.
Tonight will be the soldering and wiring, but I couldn't resist and put some strings on already.

Tonight it should be alive.

 

[wiro]

The LeFay Capone comes normally with 3 pu's. However mine is a customized version with piëzo (the bridge saddles) added:

The LeFay Midas also comes with 3 pu's:

And my Chamberbrase II has a piëzo under the bridge:

 

[Henrythe8]

Ahhhh, LeFay... I'm positively in love with the Remigton and the "hyperbass look" with a twist.


I finished the Tobyenstein yesterday.
It just needs a proper set-up, now.
Everything is working just fine.

Everything was prepped'up nicely.

Work in progress

Done !

And ready to rock !

 

[BlueTalon]

It's basically a stock Rickenbacker 4004Cii with an extra pickup. It's not quite finished yet, but it'll have triple stacked pots for V/T V/T V/T. I think. I always find I pretty much NEVER turn the tone controls down so I'm really wondering if I should just forget 'em...

I did that with my first Ric. I found I never used the tone knobs, so in the process of replacing the pickups, I made a new pickguard and just put two volume controls in... Then I realized I never used the volume controls either, so I made another pickguard and just wired the pickups straight out. I thought it sounded great that way.

Then it got stolen.

 

[mapleglo]

I almost never use tone controls on any of my basses. I rarely use volume. Now that I have a volume pedal on my pedal board, I may wire some of my basses direct, bypassing all the controls.

 

[BlueTalon]

I finished the Tobyenstein yesterday.
It just needs a proper set-up, now.
Everything is working just fine.

Everything was prepped'up nicely.

Done !

And ready to rock !

AND?!?...

 

[Henrythe8]

Ooops, sorry, didn't see the message.
Annnnnnnnd... It's disapointing. I had to recheck all wires and solders because there was a hum.
And there were a lot of volume discrepancies between the strings, depending on the choice of pickups. And the center one is a millimeter off course.
I was pretty decided to throw the bass out and start again.
But then I tried to change strings, and for the fun of it, put on GHS piccolo strings (18/50 gauge).
The humming was pretty much gone. And it sounds really cool as a piccolo bass, and it's really fun to play with the three p'ups.

 

[Amplified]

 

[BlueTalon]

Ooops, sorry, didn't see the message.
Annnnnnnnd... It's disapointing. I had to recheck all wires and solders because there was a hum.
And there were a lot of volume discrepancies between the strings, depending on the choice of pickups. And the center one is a millimeter off course.
I was pretty decided to throw the bass out and start again.
But then I tried to change strings, and for the fun of it, put on GHS piccolo strings (18/50 gauge).
The humming was pretty much gone. And it sounds really cool as a piccolo bass, and it's really fun to play with the three p'ups.

If I might make a suggestion, the next time you are into your bass, you might want to re-do the shielding. I couldn't help but notice in your pictures that there were a lot of gaps in the copper. It's kinda like putting a screen door on a submarine.

I use really thin copper (0.06mm instead of 0.1mm), and I use several layers. It is much easier to shape to form in tight spaces than the thicker copper. The conductive adhesive means it will do the job without solder (but I solder a lot of the seems anyway). And don't forget to shield the wire channels -- you can use 1/4" copper tubing from a hardware store, or wrap some copper tape around a dowel adhesive-side-out and slide it through.

This is what a complete shielding job looks like -- no leaks or holes anywhere.

 

[BlueTalon]

And for the heck of it, here are a couple new pictures of Sasha. The pink strings are for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

 

[Henrythe8]

Thanks for the input.
The shielding was good with no holes in the electronics cavity, and I re-did the shielding in the P'up cavities.
I even re-did the bridge ground in order to make sure I had sufficient contact. The thng is, I had the hum with coated strings and it dissapeared with "regular" ones. Even when I'm not touching it.
And, also, I finally figured that having a cell phone in your jean's pocket just behind the electronics cavity is a bad thing.

So, yes, for a first try, I'm pretty disspointed with my job. I was expecting that anyway.
I learned some things, though :
- I will not try to have the "phase switching" option for the pickups, it's not very useful for me.
- Putting "high End" gear on a cheap bass is a good thing as I know I'll be reusing the tuners, bridge and P'ups.
- Using a 22µF Condo on the tone is a good choice, it seems to shave off less highs than the other "tones" I had.
- I got myself lost with the pots, and finally bought logarythmic pots instead of linear. Not what I wanted for Volume pots. It's kind of OK for the tone.
- I went simpleton for the electronics with three volumes/one tone, but a switch is definetely better for handling the changes.

I'm already thinking of a new project, maybe a P-Bass where I'd add two J's like the Urge. But with a separate wiring and two outputs, one for the P and one for the J... it's still unclear.

And I'm enjoying the Piccolo Bass I made, it has a great guitaresque sound.

 

[BlueTalon]

What's the scale on your piccolo bass? And how is it tuned?

I got a chuckle out of your phase switch experience. I did that with a bass in the early 80s, because I had in my head the idea that it would do something cool to the sound like a phase pedal. After the first couple times of trying it, I never used it again, and eventually wired the pickups straight out to the jack.

Regarding the holes I saw in your shielding, I included the control cavity picture because the copper does not come all the way up and over the edge all the way around the cavity, and in many places it appeared not to even come up to the top of the edge. That leaves a gap, and gaps are counterproductive.

When I shield, the only openings I want to have anywhere are the tops of the pickup routes (or holes in the pickguard). Everything else is a sealed grounded conductive box. I think if you do that, you will find that your cell phone in your pocket behind the control cavity will have much less impact, if any at all.

Regarding the coated strings -- the worst ones to deal with are tapewound strings in a string-through body. Those are almost impossible to ground. With your Babicz bridge, though, any string should be able to be grounded via the ball at the end of the string and through the string core. It's possible that the paint on the Babicz is acting as an insulator. The next time your strings are off, you might want to sand or file the edges of the string holes -- that should ensure the strings grounding through the bridge no matter what coating there might be on the strings. I use both coated strings and uncoated strings, and I never notice any difference on my bass.

Just a thought.

 

[Henrythe8]

Ah, yes, now that you mention it, I did not completely cover the edge of the elec cavity, thinking that it should be OK with a contact. That might be a cause. Thanks !
Reagrding the Phase thingy, I thought it would be more of a tonal difference, but it turns out it's mainly a lower output.
I had the chance lately to dig in my bass playing and some gear to test, and at 41 yo, I'm discovering that I wanted to be a Passive J-Bass player, not knowing that deep down I was a P-Bass Active one. . Same for the amp, I always thought I only needed my SUNN only to discover that my favourite amp is a Fafner2 (but way out of my league price-wise).

Anyway, ton answer your questions : it's à standard 34" scale tuned EADG.
I also have a few other Piccolo, an acoustic Olympia (Clone of Tacoma Chief) 34", a Regal "Dobro" (that might be 30"), a Höfner Ignition Bass and a Danelectro Longhorn Reissue (both 30" IIRC). Always tuned EADG, I'm not too good with music theory (read : do not even know rh difference between major and minor and can barely name the note on the fretboard), so Muscle Memory is my friend.