Spacing of pickups

[Snort]

I am in the process of building my first Bass, its a 34" scale thru body neck design, that has been built to no particular plan other than the wood is all maple cut from a tree I felled 2 years ago. I am at the stage of routing out the internals ready for pickup placement, when it occured to me I dont know where to put them for best effect. Is there a specific placement required or are the pickups placed for bright or mellow tones?
Any help would be great!

 

[salman]

Pickup placement is one of the most important factors in determining the sound of a bass. General rule is, closer top the bridge, the brighter the sound is, closer to the nut, the deeper. I would go to a guitar store with a tape measure, and measure some of your favorite models from the nut to the pickup to see what the norm is out there. This will give you a good idea on where to start. Hopefully the people at the store will be cooperative

 

[jworrellbass]

A 34" scale is very common. If your not sure where to place them go to a local music store play a few 34's. Find out which one sounds best to you and measure it. Or you can read this;

http://www.till.com/articles/PickupResponse/

 

[Rocky McD]

When I built my custom P/J, I wanted a warmer, thicker sound, so I installed both pickups 3/4" closer to the nut. I am very happy with the tone as I play mostly Blues and Jazz.
Rocky

 

[Snort]

Thanks for the replies, and thanks Jworrellbass for the link, much as I thought, the bridge pickup will be no problem, and I can easily get the other at 6" from the bridge 7" at a push. I want a mellow bluesy jazzy sound, but with the option of the brighter attacking sound achieved from the bridge pickup.

The reason I was curious was because my first Bass in the late 70s was a copy of a Gibson Grabber with a sliding pickup, it never really made that much difference to the sound to my at the time inexperienced ear, but I was toying with the idea of mounting the neck pickup on sliding bars to get maximum range of movement. (The grabber had a plasticy mount that slid in a groove and was never easy to adjust).

Do you think it will be worth the effort? or should I just go for a static neck pickup?

Forgot to mention that it will be a 5 string Bass Neck is 2 5/8 at the 22 fret, tapers to 1 7/8 at the nut finish will be yellow to amber stain to let the grain show through.