upside down "right handed pickups" in a lefty bass. Does position really matter?

[xantometapon]

Maybe a silly question but, are pickups for righthand and lefthand basses the same or are they made/wound in a different way?

Pickups usually have their brand´s logo in the low right hand corner and I do not know if the sound would be different if I take those pickups out and install them in a lefty bass.

The poles that used to get the sound from the lower strings will now get the sound from the higher ones. I hope I am making myself clear with my question.

And what about active pickups like EMGs? Would the position you install them affect how they sound?

Thanks mates

 

[eastcoasteddie]

No, you can flip them over for Lefty.

 

[walterw]

nah, it's only a thing with certain vintage fender guitar pickups where the magnets are staggered to match the output of wound strings on one side and plain strings on the other side for even volume.

all bass strings are wound, the pickups work the same either direction

 

[eastcoasteddie]

I wonder how Fender addresses this with V-mod pickups, where half are Anlico 2 (or 3?) and half are Alnico 5.
I hope they do that correctly...

 

[dwizum]

The irony is, you get crazy situations like Jimi Hendrix playing a right handed instrument upside down, and now you have Fender building what are essentially left handed instruments and pickups designed to be played upside down by right handed people.

As a lefty, I often install pickups in my own basses "backwards" in order to have the shortest possible cable run. Sometimes I pop the covers off and flip them around if possible, but with epoxy potted pickups, that's usually not an option. In those cases, you just have to accept that it makes for a good conversation starter when people ask why your pickups are backwards.

The only potential consideration is that if you're coil splitting a humbucker and want to be sure you're selecting a specific coil (neck or bridge side of a given pickup) then you'd just switch whichever pair of wires you'd use in a right handed instrument.

 

[Wood and Wire]

The irony is, you get crazy situations like Jimi Hendrix playing a right handed instrument upside down, and now you have Fender building what are essentially left handed instruments and pickups designed to be played upside down by right handed people.

Oh don't get me started.

As a lefty, one of the reasons I ended up playing right handed was because Rickenbackers tiny supply of left handed basses used a right handed neck, with left handed wings attached.

I don't dig reverse headstocks, at all.

Then they recently launched a Paul McCartney replica bass - for right handed musicians.

You guessed it - a left handed neck, with right handed wings attached, resulting in a reverse headstock...




...yet they still don't make a left handed bass, with a left handed neck, and the correct orientation headstock.