too many pickups

[sonic assassin]

so i like the movable idea, as i sometimes want a very specific high mid attack that sits between P and J, but not MM. and sometimes i want a P. or mudbucker with a crapload of chorus on it. even a plinky bridge sound.

so instead of a track and wires that will wiggle themselves loose and cause problems, cant we use conductive traces on the track somewhere so that it always touches? some sort of interference maybe?

 

[David1234]

With three J pickups and individual volume controls on an old Maton JB4 that I once owned and now miss, a whole bunch of odd-but-tasty tones could be had by using novel blends of the pups e..g Neck on 1/2, Middle on 1/4 and Bridge on full. the spacing was pretty much 70s J spacing with another J right in between them. I dug it. So I feel that 3 pups is not too many.

But I feel that the bootsy bass definitely has too many pickups!

 

[line6man]

you mean all 7...haha there are 7 different pickups. thats just ridiculous. at least he has different ones, i would be interested in hearing them all individually at least

I wasn't paying attention.

Walter, where is that wonderful statement you made the other month about basses with a million switches and settings?

 

[line6man]

ok that explains it. them using 3 preamps in one bass seems crazy. the output must be so high it overloads the front end of any amp its plugged into. cant find a schematic or a picture of the guts so it must not have sold very well.

No, I don't think it would be that loud. The pickups obviously look like they have a high output, but then so do many J pickups.

Just because you have five pickups into three preamps doesn't necessarily mean the output would be any different than the usual two pickups/one preamp setup.

Just for ***** and giggles, I'd like to see someone try to wire the five pickups in series and then complain that it's too hot and muddy.

 

[BassLife77]

is this too many?
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well I'm not gonna bash your unique design. to each his own. thinking outside the box is how new ideas get started.

 

[Munjibunga]

I prefer fewer pickups, but more knobs.

 

[Nev375]

By all means feel free to experiment if you have a mind for such complexity.

Personally though, I'd rather be thinking about which note to hit and how to hit it rather than wondering which pickup combination, phase, EQ setting, series/parallel setting, etc... should I be using for this.

 

[DaLoCo]

Uhhhh....I am going to buy beer....

 

[hansfrank13]

I made a bass with the standard p/j pickups (but both are closer to the bridge than normal) i was thinking about putting a musicman in between the p and j and putting a single coil p in the normal p bass spot. i like the sound of the mm's, single coil p's, split coil p's and bridge j pickup.. i'm not planning on running all of them at once but would this cause impedence or MAJOR string pull problems. please let me know what you think

 

[walterw]

i like the sound of the mm's, single coil p's, split coil p's and bridge j pickup.

most of which occupy the same spots as each other on a bass

 

[Derek Balonek]

You know, you could get all that with a properly set up quad coil in the sweet spot.

 

[Stealth]

The position, yeah, the actual coil geometry and polepiece geometry would still make some positions great, the others close approximations but not-quite-there.

 

[cnltb]

I am a lover of modern bass tech, vintage holds little value to me. I love the punch, crunch and growl of modern electronics. And if i was going to build a bass, i was considering filling the whole thing with pickups. I know that is stupid and a circuitry nightmare, but i just like the idea.

So how many pickups is too many, and what problems could it cause?

String pull and cancellation of frequencies are two possible issues.
I personally only use one pickup basses.
So for me, two would be too many.

 

[JetBlackJazz]

use that bass pickup thing that is 12 pickups in one casing...

 

[Hevy T]

well I'm not gonna bash your unique design. to each his own. thinking outside the box is how new ideas get started.

Cyborg. The name should be changed from Frenandas to Lacutis

 

[groooooove]

realistically it depends on how strong each pickups magnets are. they do pull on the strings. thats why bootsys bass has the sound it has, that intense honk, but its so percussive, and has zero sustain.

i'd like to toy around with a 5-6 pickup bass, but wouldn't consider it a realistic design for a bass i'd bring to gigs.

 

[Ric5]

3 pickup basses are totally feasable and workable.

To do more you just run some pickups in series and then run the series groups in parallel so you end up with a resistance somewhere between 4 and 14k ohms.

 

[Ric5]

realistically it depends on how strong each pickups magnets are. they do pull on the strings. thats why bootsys bass has the sound it has, that intense honk, but its so percussive, and has zero sustain.

i'd like to toy around with a 5-6 pickup bass, but wouldn't consider it a realistic design for a bass i'd bring to gigs.

Too much magnetic pull on the strings can cause some bad false harmonics. But backing off the pickups a little can eliminate this.

 

[MusicBear]

Reminds me of "opening day"

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A lot of fishing gear is intended to catch fishermen, not fish...

 

[walterw]

Ain't that the truth!

I got SGD David's goat a while back with my assertion that the right number of pickup coils on a bass was two, no more and no less.

precision, jazz, stingray, rick,...two coils.