Why are there no pickups in this location?

[bowthing]

I've been obsessing about where to put the pickup in my next bass, and I've been looking at a lot of basses and measurements in the prosound reference. I have noticed that most pickups are placed at around 10-11 inches (from the 12th fret), and then around 13-14 inches. Does anyone know why the zone in between is rarely used? It would be about where the D-G P-bass half is located. I want to use a single wide-aperture pickup (MM or MFD passive), but want a little deeper sound than a Stingray or L1500, and a little less bassy than a P or L1000. Should I just go for it, or has someone already tried this and found it doesn't sound good?

 

[Nic.]

My guess is that it's near an important node so it'll have significantly less lower-harmonic output and sound thin.

Edit: Okay if you have a 34" bass, then 11"-13" from the 12th fret is 4"-6" from the end of the string, or 1/5 to 1/6 of the string. On the other hand, the other two are situated very near 1/4 and 1/8 of the strong so maybe my idea is wrong... in any case the "viewing range" should be wide enough to account for that unless you put it somewhere around the 12th fret.

That said, my 35" fretless 5 has a pickups about 4" and 8" from the bridge ( so 13.5" and 11.5" from the "12th fret") so I guess that would count as in-between. I don't have any issues with the sound- but on the other hand, it's a very personal preference thing. I noticed with the same strings it had noticeably more aggressiveness than my fretless jazz, but I don't know if that's because of the neck wood which would probably affect a lot more too.

 

[amphlett7]

You mean like this location?

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[bowthing]

I've often thought the node arguments don't make a lot of sense, because they asume we only play the open strings!. I've always wanted to actually map out say, the 0-3rd harmonics for each fret, (and accounting for the slightly different string lengths), but I suspect that you would get a mess of nodes everywhere, and that it wouldn't help you, other than tell you that a particular note and harmonic might be quiet in that location. I don't think you can avoid nodes altogether...

 

[bowthing]

You mean like this location?

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Well I hear that one is killer, but I'm thinking about 3/4" closer to the bridge!

 

[Nic.]

I've often thought the node arguments don't make a lot of sense, because they asume we only play the open strings!. I've always wanted to actually map out say, the 0-3rd harmonics for each fret, (and accounting for the slightly different string lengths), but I suspect that you would get a mess of nodes everywhere, and that it wouldn't help you, other than tell you that a particular note and harmonic might be quiet in that location. I don't think you can avoid nodes altogether...

Yup but it would be an indicator that, for example, notes played on the lower frets might be richer in fundamentals while those on the higher frets be richer in harmonics with noticeably less fundamental content, etc. etc.

Actually it might be a pretty cool thing to map out. I could do it in Excel quite easily.

 

[LB75]

I have always thought it would be interesting, as an experiment, to rout a channel between the neck and the bridge and fashion a way to mount a pickup, on some kind of rails maybe, to be able to slide the pickup to any position and maybe have a way to swivel it slightly too.

 

[bowthing]

Yup but it would be an indicator that, for example, notes played on the lower frets might be richer in fundamentals while those on the higher frets be richer in harmonics with noticeably less fundamental content, etc. etc.

Actually it might be a pretty cool thing to map out. I could do it in Excel quite easily.

I was thinking a spreadsheet would work also. If you do it, post the results! Just a scatter chart of all the nodes would tell you if there are "light" and "heavy" areas.

I've always thought that the notes near twice the distance from the bridge to the pickup (high frets) sound the way they do because the first harmonic is missing. That's a good argument for pickups near the bridge (or two pickups), but I don't care if those notes are perfect, I just want a nice sound in the area I know how to play in (read 1-4-5 in G!!).

 

[Beej]

^^Its been done, more than once. Westone rail bass, and Gibson Grabber are two big'uns that pop into mind.

To the OP, forget the math, just wire the pickup you like to a jack and hover it above the strings while a buddy strums and when you find the tone you like, route a hole and mount it...

 

[bowthing]

I have always thought it would be interesting, as an experiment, to rout a channel between the neck and the bridge and fashion a way to mount a pickup, on some kind of rails maybe, to be able to slide the pickup to any position and maybe have a way to swivel it slightly too.

Yeah, totally. A test bass with a big channel and zillions of screw holes. Like a pegboard for pickups...

 

[bowthing]

Yeah, totally. A test bass with a big channel and zillions of screw holes. Like a pegboard for pickups...

I remember seeing one bass with a pivoted arm that you could swing forward and back.

I would opt for rails though, and a servo motor and leadscrew, so you could hook it up to a pedal and run the pickup back and forth as you are playing. Might be kind of heavy though...

 

[bowthing]

^^Its been done, more than once. Westone rail bass, and Gibson Grabber are two big'uns that pop into mind.

To the OP, forget the math, just wire the pickup you like to a jack and hover it above the strings while a buddy strums and when you find the tone you like, route a hole and mount it...

That did occur to me! All except the buddy part, which makes it much easier. And I have kids, so there you go...

 

[iamlowsound]

I was thinking a spreadsheet would work also. If you do it, post the results! Just a scatter chart of all the nodes would tell you if there are "light" and "heavy" areas.

I've always thought that the notes near twice the distance from the bridge to the pickup (high frets) sound the way they do because the first harmonic is missing. That's a good argument for pickups near the bridge (or two pickups), but I don't care if those notes are perfect, I just want a nice sound in the area I know how to play in (read 1-4-5 in G!!).

Agreed, post the excel sheet. I might even get bored and draw it out in autocad.

lowsound

 

[walterw]

You mean like this location?

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Well I hear that one is killer, but I'm thinking about 3/4" closer to the bridge!

oh, like this rare and exotic design?

 

[bowthing]

oh, like this rare and exotic design?

Yeah, that is really close, isn't it? I hesitate to even ask if Ric players like the sound of the bridge pickup --- of course they do!

 

[Nic.]

Agreed, post the excel sheet. I might even get bored and draw it out in autocad.

lowsound

Rather than scatterchart, what I did was put a slot to fill in pickup placement, then calculated the strength of each of the first 40 harmonics for each fret position... taking each harmonic as a sin wave and so the amplitude of the sine wave at that point.

Problem with this is that with 24 frets you get too many lines on the graphs, but a quick look at the table indicates the spread of the maxima (i.e. which frets have greater lower or higher frequencies)

The only thing I can say for sure at this point of time is that generally, whatever position the pickup, it favours higher harmonics the lower your fret (obviously), and bridge pickups tend to favour less harmonics while as the pickup gets closer to the neck, it favours more and more harmonics (again obviously since it becomes further from the edge of the equivalent string length)

Actually I realized that I could probably simulate multiple pickups and phase cancellation and all that... and since the tuning is pretty fixed I could also churn out the frequency spectrum.

Assuming that plucking/picking at a point raises one particular position such that it forms a trapezoid (with variable width depending on size of pick/finger) I could probably determine the original mix of frequencies, and from there multiply to the above and find the final mix. At some point I would start creating a guitar/bass sound synthesizer once I figure out the coupling with the body and allow for give in the neck pocket/flexibility in the neck, although I have my suspicions that coupling with the body will have minimal effect here.

I'm not bored enough today to do that, any takers?

 

[DizzyExiled]

I have always thought it would be interesting, as an experiment, to rout a channel between the neck and the bridge and fashion a way to mount a pickup, on some kind of rails maybe, to be able to slide the pickup to any position and maybe have a way to swivel it slightly too.

I've seen something like that on a Russian bass, couldn't play with it because it had that Soviet 4pin jack.

 

[Nic.]

Just use the rail bass!

 

[Jazzdogg]

Rather than scatterchart, what I did was put a slot to fill in pickup placement, then calculated the strength of each of the first 40 harmonics for each fret position... taking each harmonic as a sin wave and so the amplitude of the sine wave at that point.

Problem with this is that with 24 frets you get too many lines on the graphs, but a quick look at the table indicates the spread of the maxima (i.e. which frets have greater lower or higher frequencies)

The only thing I can say for sure at this point of time is that generally, whatever position the pickup, it favours higher harmonics the lower your fret (obviously), while as the pickup gets closer to the neck, it favours more and more harmonics.

Actually I realized that I could probably simulate multiple pickups and phase cancellation and all that... and since the tuning is pretty fixed I could also churn out the frequency spectrum.

Assuming that plucking/picking at a point raises one particular position such that it forms a trapezoid (with variable width depending on size of pick/finger) I could probably determine the original mix of frequencies, and from there multiply to the above and find the final mix.

I'm not bored enough today to do that, any takers?

So you're planning to plot amplitude and frequency response between the end of the fingerboard and the bridge for a given scale length? Intriguing. It'd be interesting to see how the results change by string type, scale length, and whether the strings are played fingerstyle, with a pick, slapped, and so forth.

 

[Nic.]

So you're planning to plot amplitude and frequency response between the end of the fingerboard and the bridge for a given scale length? Intriguing. It'd be interesting to see how the results change by string type, scale length, and whether the strings are played fingerstyle, with a pick, slapped, and so forth.

I guess I could do that also, but what I'm doing now is plotting for various scale length (obtained by fretting different frets) for a given pickup position.

String type is really too much work... honestly speaking, I don't think I can even get close to calculating the frequency mix as long as I'm still working on a spreadsheet. It's been pretty long since I last touched acoustics, especially for strings, but I recall it's not as simple as that.