Why do i have to solder when changing pickups?

Well they do have quick-connect pickups that you just plug in, but the pickup still needs to be solidly attached to the bass if for nothing else that the capability of height adjustment and screws are the easiest and cheapest way to do that.

 

emg makes a total plug and play system, all except the output jack I believe. the pickups and tone controles all have simple plug in conections.
the problem is I think frequent use of these plugs would cause excessive wear and result in loose plugs, combine this with all the vibration involved and you get bad conections and noise.

 

I agree. I'm a horrible solder-er if you could even call what I do soldering. It's more like me sitting there with a hot poker on a soldering joint staring at it waiting for something to happen for 10 minutes. (it usually never does so 10 minutes is about my give-up and quit time limit) There has to be a better/faster way to change things out. Some basses and guitars do have wiring harnesses with the connecting clips already attached so there's one semi-solution. I'm sure there's a wire here or there you'd still have to end up soldering somewhere. As far as the screws that's just plain laziness if you don't want to have to deal with those.

 

The point of the screws and the soldering is that its cheap and reliable.

Usually the least reliable electrical parts of a bass are the jack, the potentiometers and switches. That's because those are places where the electrical signal relies on a push contact, which is a terrible way to connect two circuits.

It could definitely be done with magnets/lego type connectors but you would be adding expense to make the instrument more likely to suddenly fail for a feature most people would never use.

 

Points are probably that the vast majority of buyers never change the pickups, and it's the cheapest and most secure way to connect them.

 

don't know if the magnets are a good idea, the tone of the bass has a great deal to do with the magnetic field created by the pickups add more magnets and you change the field=change the tone(and if you don't believe this then why change pickups?)
I like the lego pickups though maybe emg and fisher price can get togeather on that

 

by the way guys soldering is a real handy skill to have and it's not that hard but their are a few tricks that you need to learn to master it get someone who knows what their doing to WATCH YOU do it then tell you what your doing wrong, once you get it figured out it's super easy

 

If you want to swap out various components easily, try these:

http://www.markertek.com/Connectors...32322d343132&gclid=CNm92OvzrrgCFYKi4AodQiIA5Q

Each wire entry port can accept multiple small gage wires. They also come in versions with numerous openings.

They take up a lot more space, but they make it easy to make very good connections that are very easy to do, and un-do.

WAGO: The Lego of wiring!

 

http://www.ampeg.com/products/daplexi/ada4/

 

Changing the pickups for studio, live etc. sounds highly impractical and totally not worth the time. Just get a bunch of basses and equip them with suitable pickups. Besides, it's way cooler to own five basses than one bass and five sets of pickups.

 

Plus you may also want to use different strings.

 

Better in that case with a system where you can change the pickups from the back of the bass. Just drop in through the body.

 

If you want the ease of doing that start a company. The price would considerably higher and you still need a way to adjust the height.
It's like saying why put lug nuts on wheels?

 

I bet they wouldn't.