What is the point of pickup covers?

I might be the only one here that truly thinks bridge and pickup covers are hideous. To say nothing of being highly impractical. But my opinions on things tend to always be contrary to what is popular, for whatever reason, however.

 

+1

Yes I agree ...

 

+2

 

Look at Marcus Miller, an amazing slap bassist who played with some of the jazz greats such as Miles Davis in his early years and is now a solo artist, he uses a pickup cover on his signature fender jazz as a hand rest for the back part of his palm when slapping. The only reason he doesn't have a bridge cover is because he is using a badass II bridge. Also, fenders original jazz basses included foam string mutes between the bridge and the bridge pickup, the purpose of the bridge cover was to hide these mutes (which were intended to make the bass sound more like an upright.) Jaco also originally had covers on his bass when he was a teenager, also had the mutes on his bass ( back before he married Tracy and left Florida)

Max

 

I think they look pretty cool on a traditional looking sunburst bass with tortoise pickguard, but they are very impractical.

Same thing with the cover on a Rick.

 

+3

All they do is get in the way ... and provide huge smudge palates that must constantly be polished.

 

I think they look great but do get in the way, depending on playing style. The bridge cover is a huge no-no on a jazz bass for me because it prevents plucking over the bridge. No bridge plucking means no jazz "burp". On a Precision, the pickup cover gets in the way because it moves my plucking hand about an inch closer to the bridge...not where I want it to be on a P-Bass. The bridge cover on a P-Bass never really gets in my way unless I'm using a pick because I can't palm mute with it on. The neck pup cover on a jazz I find not to be obtrusive and actually beneficial when slapping because it gives the hand a rest and reference point. All that said, sometimes I'll put covers on just 'cuz...no other reason besides they look pretty and sometimes I like to feel pretty. I'm pretty sure the original intent of the pickup cover on the earliest precision basses was for grounding...there are pics out there that show an extra wire coming up from the pup cavity leading to a screw where it was affixed to the body and pup cover.

 

I've found, on my Squier Jazz, I can adjust my playing to compensate for the covers, but not on my P-bass.

 

According to my brainiac instrument engineer - the purpose of the covers is to control or reflect some of the magnetic energy back down to the strings from the top, so that they vibrate more symmetrically. The magnets DO pull the strings down, and this will help compensate for it.

I have never seen a bass where the covers were grounded, so they would not offer any shielding benefit, although this seems to be the most common thought. Some people may have added wires thinking it would help.

Those of you that have/make them could do some testing for sound differences with and without the covers. It would be interesting.

 

This is indeed what Fender did originally. I've seen pics of
'51 P-basses that show the grounding wire that used to attach to the cover (in Paul Balmer's Fender bass handbook)

 

True

 

There is also a book on strictly early 50's Fender P's out there. That's where I saw pics of the "grounding wire". Not sure of the name of that book unfortunately, I'm sure it's a fun read.

 

As I said, I have never seen one, and the one in the book could have been a modification someone added along the way.

Such a wire might help by grounding out any hum field brought in by the user's hand when it touches the shield.

Either way, such a shield would have little or no magnetic or RFI shielding effect as the sides are open.

 

No, not a mod, that's what Fender did originally (According to Paul Balmer in that same book). They stopped doing it when it became obvious it didn't work as well as they thought it would. Hey, even Leo made mistakes sometimes.

 

+1

 

Yup. I've grounded mine just for drill but it's correct that this does very little in the way of shielding. And the steel is too thin to do any magnetic shielding either. Single coil hum remains unchanged as well.

However, I say that there IS a tone change from the ashtrays. This is going to be one of those "tonewood" arguments because the change is VERY minor and is to my ears a kind of "disorty" edge on the high frequencies. (With the tray on, IMHO the tone is slightly better with it off!) It's so minor I ignore it and just slap on the ashtrays for reto looks But I swear that tonal change is REAL.

 

Folks, the Fender bass came out in the '50s, when chrome was king on automobiles. I'm surprised the basses didn't have fins in the the late '50s. Also, Leo Fender assumed everyone would pluck the strings with a thumb, thus the tugbar, not play right over the pickup and use it as a thumb anchor. The covers hide the pickup and bridge. The bridge cover wasn't there to hide the foam mute, it actually held the mute and tightening or loosening the cover screws let you adjust the amount of pressure the foam put on the strings. I sued to keep the bridge cover on my '59 P screwed about halfway down. I took off my pickup cover after playing for about a year, and the bridge cover stayed on for 6 years, when I switched from flats to Rotosounds.

 

The '68 Tele bass was a SCP revival. It had a ground wire to the pickup cover, so I presume the earliest ones did, too, to no effect. It's all in vain, star grounding, foil wrapping, all of it. Because as Lindy explains, it's the pickups that are picking up the hum, so if you want foil shielding to work, you have to wrap the pickup in it, and naturally that prevents the pickup from sensing the string vibrations.

If you want the real SC sound without hum, you have to have a coil to pick up the hum ONLY in reverse (none of the string vibrations) which will cancel it. Ideally, the coil will surround the single coil pickups in the same plane, but it will work in other configurations. http://www.ilitchelectronics.com/ has this idea patented. Some day, I will buy or recreate a heavy ash '68 Tele bass and have an Ilitch coil installed.

The other thing is the cover keeps the player from resting the thumb on the delicate fiber bobbin and trashing the pickup, which is easy to do.

The secret of the great upright sound of the 70s fretless P basses is the foam strip inside the bridge ashtray. Contrary to all other foam or felt mute designs, it presses on the string from above, so the higher you get on the neck, and the less robust the vibrations, the more the string naturally disengages from the mute. When the foam or felt presses upward, that's reversed, which is all wrong. Rick, Gibbo, and MM mutes do one thing well: reduce neck dive.