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What do soapbar pickups do?

Bright Midnight

Bright Midnight

Oct 5, 2010
1,262
1,230
Belgium, Flanders
#1
I've never played soapbar pickups before and would like any input as to how diiferent they sound from singles or humbuckers. I'm looking to buy a Sandberg Bullet but there's price difference in the single coil/humbucker configuration, which is pricier, and the soapbar/soapbar one. So what difference in sound would I get if getting the soapbars? Would it be like a JJ configuration?

Any information very welcome!
 
#5
As others have stated, the soapbar casing can house just about any coil configuration.
You can get single coils, humbuckers, split coils, quad coils, narrow apertures, wide apertures, etc.

You have to be specific on what pickup the bass is equipped with, because otherwise, no one knows what it will sound like.
 
#8
The soapbar casing was named because of it's resemblance to a bar of soap.:hyper:
On basses, pickup covers are almost always made of black plastic, but on guitars, they can look like this:
P90_soapbar.jpg
 
#9
Interesting. On guitars, (like the post above), soapbars are usually associated with single coils--for example the P-90s on some Les Pauls. That being the case, the term "soap bars" tells you basically nothing about the pickups except for cosmetics on basses.
 
#11
boynamedsuse said:
Interesting. On guitars, (like the post above), soapbars are usually associated with single coils--for example the P-90s on some Les Pauls. That being the case, the term "soap bars" tells you basically nothing about the pickups except for cosmetics on basses.
Click to expand...

Right. Most soapbar pickups for bass are humbuckers. But you can stick anything in there. I make four kinds of pickups that will fit in the same soapbar case. They are all hum canceling, but two styles sound like single coils. You can't tell by looking at the case.
 
#14
King3opobn said:
Is there e type (single coil, humbucking, etc)that can only be used in soapbar casings?
Click to expand...

So you mean a soapbar as compared to something like a Jazz pickup? Sure, the soapbar is a lot larger, so you can fit more stuff in there.

I make a humbucker that fits in Jazz pickup shells, but they don't sound as full as my soapbars, because they are wider and sense a larger area of the string.

The size of the the smaller pickup housings can be limiting.
 

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