X-Bass - Experimental 3 Pickup Bass

[Flux Jetson]

....Flux, you got a fourth Jazz pickup somewhere in there to try this out?

Yea, sure do. But I'm not really interested in that arrangement though. Too limiting. It doesn't offer me any spread of tone over the available length of the scale. The idea here is to tap into the various sounds that the scale is offering. If I put a single pickup per string I'm locked into one position on the scale.

Besides there are piezo pickups that are bridge mounted with per-string volume controls available from a number of sources already (Carvin comes to mind).

No, see the object of this set of tests is to try different combinations of scale-related pickup points. Another object is to work out the Rickenbacker Formula. I have been a firm believer for a long time that pickup placement has more to do with the "Ric Sound" than any other single aspect. Yes, of course, there are many other things that contribute to it, but I believe that the single most influential aspect is pickup placement. In other words, if you had to pick just one thing about a Rickenbacker 4001/4003 bass that produced the most influential component in creating "that sound" I believe it is the placement of the pickups relative to the scale.

Said another way, if you created a pie chart that divided up all of the individual things of a Ric bass that have an effect on creating the well known 70s rock bass tone that the Rics were used for, the largest section of the pie chart would be devoted to pickup placement. My theory on that has been proven time and again by others that have placed pickups in the proper places (most especially the neck pickup, which must be very near to the 24th fret location, a position I often refer to as "F24") and have demonstrated the striking similarity between their instrument and that special midrange twang that Rics have produced. It requires that the bass produce a scooped tone, with the scoop being in the proper place, and a heavy hump also in the right place, as well as a low end hump in the proper place.

This hump/scoop/hump curve is created by placing the pickups in the proper places relative to the scale. My own observations have lead me to conclude that those places are very close to F24 and F36. Or otherwise described as the 2nd harmonic and 3rd harmonic.

Obviously it takes more than just pickup placement to get that particular job done. I've forgotten how many times I've read stories about how someone saved all their money, bought a Ric, plugged it in, and nothing. They spoke of all of these expectations of huge multitudes of crowds cheering them on in stadiums and arenas as they played away on their Mighty Rickenbacker .. that killer rock sound blasting huge amounts of KICK ASS out of the speakers. Only to be hugely disappointed when their sparkling new Ric bass actually didn't sound as good as the one it replaced! The lesson being that it takes a LOT more than just the bass to create the sound. I'm simply acknowleging my awareness of that fact in this paragraph.

Anyhow, this has turned into one of my typical Flux Ramblings again. I'd apologize but by now anyone that knows me knows this is what to expect of me.

Back on topic, I'd love to try lipstick pickups, as well as many MANY other types. But during the first few dozen or so tests I want to stick with the most common pickups there are ..... P and J. Reason being is that there are more variants and a wider spread of tone within those two frame formats. The 3rd being Music Man. Once I discover where I wish to place pickups, and how many, and so on .. THEN we may move on to more exotic ideas. By that time I'll know where to place those exotic pickup types and there will be placement data gathered on "best knowns" for the bass pair and treble pair.

I posted a set of individually wound coils within P-bass tetris-blocks a page or two back. Those have serious potential for the "per string" approach. So jump back a page or two in this thread to see them, they're VERY obvious and impossible to miss. They use sewing machine bobbins, and each P-block is a humbucker. They're ABSOLUTELY on my list of pickups to be tested, once I get the placement data gathered FIRST.

Ok, enough bla bla bla.

Lastly, thanks for not remarking about how I used what appears to have been a chainsaw to cut out the pickup cavity. I will say that I warned everyone to not expect much out of the workmanship for the bathtub cavity!

Considering all I used was a Forstner bit and a wood chisel, I'd say it will serve it's function just fine.

 

[howardcano]

Besides there are piezo pickups that are bridge mounted with per-string volume controls available from a number of sources already (Carvin comes to mind).

Hi Flux,

I didn't see this on the Carvin website. Do you have a link to it, or anything similar?

Lastly, thanks for not remarking about how I used what appears to have been a chainsaw to cut out the pickup cavity. I will say that I warned everyone to not expect much out of the workmanship for the bathtub cavity!

I'd say it illustrates a very effective use of simple tools. You have just shown everyone that they don't need to buy a router to install a pickup!

 

[Doner Designs]

Lookin good dude!

I did my first few routes this way (no router) but will never go back. Router is so much easier....but it is indeed a scary tool.

I finally got the hardest part done. Since I decided to not use my router on this, I was able to leave the neck attached, the bridge installed, and the pickups and control plate installed.

I used a Porter Cable 3/4 inch Forstner bit. I used a bench grinder and gound off the guide point from the bit before I used it to hog out the bulk of the material in the new pickup cavity. I did this so there wouldn't be all of these little divots in the center of each hogged out hole from the guide tip.

First I loosely set the pickups I wished to use on the bass in their approximate locations. I then put down painter's tape in a rectangle to mark where I wanted material removed. I also taped the pickups down to the body out of the way of where I would be working on the new cavity.

I then placed a thin piece of cardboard (from a used up desk blotter calendar) on the drill press table to protect the body. After chucking up the Forstner bit, I used the existing neck pickup cavity as a depth guide. I lowered the quill down untill the bit touched the bottom of the neck pickup cavity, then locked the depth setter. Now I could just pull on the handle until it wouldn't move any more and I would know that each hole was exactly the right depth and each hogger hole would be of uniform depth.

I raised the quill back up, started the drill press motor, and began to reef out the area I had previously marked with tape, one hole at a time. I held the body down with my left arm while I operated the quill feed with my right arm. The body remained stable and didn't try to jump or chatter once while I moved from hole to hole.

After I removed as much material as I could safely remove with the modified forstner bit in the drill press, I then removed the bass from the drill press and finished the cavity with wood chisels. I'm new to using all of this "wood stuff" so I wasn't expecting much, just a cavity that was the right depth and halfway squared sides.

The green pinstripe tape marks the imaginary "24th fret" (aka 2nd harmonic) which is exactly half the distance between the 12th fret and the bridge (34 inch scale bass is 17" to the 12th fret, which means the 24th fret would be half of 17 ... that's 8.5 inches. So that tape line is 8.5" from the 12th fret). That's the centerline of one of the new pickups that will most likely be installed. This is also where Rickenbacker installs their neck pickups on their 4001/4003 basses. So that tape line marks the approximate centerline of one of the new single coil pickups going into the new cavity.

The depth is the same as the cavity that the factory cut out for the stock neck pickup. If I need more depth it will be no problem to remove more material.

I still need to remove a little bit for the little ~ears~ on the P bass pickups, but I'll do that after I get their 1st positions marked.

CONTINUED NEXT POST ......

 

[Flux Jetson]

Lookin good dude!

I did my first few routes this way (no router) but will never go back. Router is so much easier....but it is indeed a scary tool.

Thank you.

The one thing I can see as an advantage to using a drill and woodchisel (or Dremel) is that you don't need to take the bass totally apart to do it this way. The neck, bridge, control plate and both pickups were all left attached to get this done.

I figured if Billy Sheehan can welch out a pickup cavity with a flathead screwdriver while beating on it with a shoe in a hotel room, I could do it with a drill press, a 3/4" Forstner bit ($10 at Lowes) and a 1" wood chisel.

I would suggest that the wood chisel be as sharp as absolutely possible. I used a flat honing stone (that I sharpen knives with) to put a super sharp edge on the old wood chisel I had. That really helped.

You can probably do it with a router without tearing down the bass if you use tall enough standoffs (like 2x4s or something) to set the router's base on while routing. I mean, instruments with neck-through designs have to be done SOMEHOW, right? So there is obviously an acceptable practice when that is concerned. But I'm not experienced enough with a router or router-use procedures to know if that is considered bad practices. It would seem that you'd want the router's base as close to the bass's body surface as possible, otherwise the router bit would have to stick out past the base by a good stretch to obtain full cavity depth. I'd think that bit-shank flex might come into play here. But again, total ignoramus on the router here.

Anyhow ....

Thanks again Steve.

 

[Flux Jetson]

Hi Flux,

I didn't see this on the Carvin website. Do you have a link to it, or anything similar?

I'd say it illustrates a very effective use of simple tools. You have just shown everyone that they don't need to buy a router to install a pickup!

Thanks Howard. Now all of us Bohemians can go hogging out a cavity in our basses! Haahaa!

Re: Carvin. Here's a link to a pdf file that shows Carvin's "P series package piezo option". The PDF file is dated Jan/Mar 2010 so if they dropped that option it was done fairly recently. I owned 3 of these LB series Carvin basses (4, 5 ,and 6 string) and really loved them all. I didn't exploit the per-string volume setup at all though. No reason, just didn't.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Here's a couple of screenshot clips from that very PDF file ...

I didn't see this option set on their website now either, so I don't have any idea what's going on with it.

I hope this helped.

 

[mgalat]

Okay, so this is seriously one of the coolest threads on TB.

Excellent job.

 

[Flux Jetson]

Okay, so this is seriously one of the coolest threads on TB.

Excellent job.

Thanks so much. I honestly appreciate the encouragment.

I'm going to start out using FOUR J-bass pickups. I forgot to take a picture of the 4J pickup configuration when I took all of those configuration shots. DOH! But I have two pairs of Duncan Design Jazz Bass pickups. 2 will go in the stock locations, and the extra two will go in the Rickenbacker locations (what I call "F24" and "F36" positions).

I've also worked out a pretty cool setup to install and remove the pickups easily, as well as very easily change their configurations from series to parallel in any combination of pickups and locations. And after the config-strip the outputs of the strip are soldered directly to a set of 4 output jacks that I'll use to connect the bass to an array of 4 separate ART mic preamps to provide great input impedance levels for the pickups as well as phase inversion switches for convenience. After the 4 ART preamps those 4 signals will then be sent to a buffered 8 channel mixer (used in a modular synthesizer) to provide pickup selection and pickup mixing. The mixer is a clever design that permits any input channel to be routed to either of two output jacks. The mixer is also SUPER transparent and almost 100% noiseless. So it will not contaminate the pickups' outputs with it's own tone or add any noise. From the mixer the signals will go to various destinations depending on what tests and recordings I am doing. For "bare" tonal comparisons I'll send the outputs directly to my audio interface for recording. But I'll also run them through some of my favorite EQ settings and FX processors to see how various pickup combos or pickup locations perform in my own rig.

So there is much to look forward to.

Thanks again for the encouraging remarks. It all helps push this project forward.

 

[KeithAlanK]

THIS is what I've been waiting for in this thread.

The idea of using 4 ART preamps is brilliant.

 

[garythenuke]

I love this thread man. Keep your eye out for guys to ask you to build one of these for them....

 

[Flux Jetson]

I love this thread man. Keep your eye out for guys to ask you to build one of these for them....

Pfft .. no pressure, right? Haahaa!

I'll need to get my router chops sharpened up first! I'd never want to take someone's money for doing a pickup cavity as fugly as mine is!

But if it comes down to a request I will gladly accept it. I love helping out others, it's actually my only legacy since we have no kids. What I do for others is all I will leave behind when I'm gone.

Totally ultimate compliment garythenuke, thank you VERY much for the encouragment!

More soon, I took today off.

 

[garythenuke]

You're welcome Flux. I may be at the head of the line. Keep your eyes open for the PMs. Have a great rest of the day off.

 

[Ragoo]

Flux, your threads consistently leave me in awe of what one man can do if he puts his mind to it. The number of tonal possibilities that you have envisioned is beyond my scope. Keep going with this, I can't wait for the final product!

 

[KeithAlanK]

My plan is to get an SX Jazz and rout it to put the pickups in Rick positions.
Might wire it for "SX-O-Sound" eventually.

With the price of Rickenbackers way beyond my comfort level and good copies hard to find and rising in price, this seems like my best (cheapest) option to get close to "that" sound.
Pickguard isn't a problem for me.

I need to buy a router anyway to finish building a guitar I started in 1990: Carvin maple neck-thru with ebony fingerboard, quilted maple wings in the Ibanez Artist shape, single humbucker.
It was meant to back-up my amazing 1977 Artist but I quit playing guitar professionally around that time to run sound.

 

[BlueTalon]

The one thing I can see as an advantage to using a drill and woodchisel (or Dremel) is that you don't need to take the bass totally apart to do it this way. The neck, bridge, control plate and both pickups were all left attached to get this done.

I figured if Billy Sheehan can welch out a pickup cavity with a flathead screwdriver while beating on it with a shoe in a hotel room, I could do it with a drill press, a 3/4" Forstner bit ($10 at Lowes) and a 1" wood chisel.

You can probably do it with a router without tearing down the bass if you use tall enough standoffs (like 2x4s or something) to set the router's base on while routing. I mean, instruments with neck-through designs have to be done SOMEHOW, right? So there is obviously an acceptable practice when that is concerned. But I'm not experienced enough with a router or router-use procedures to know if that is considered bad practices. It would seem that you'd want the router's base as close to the bass's body surface as possible, otherwise the router bit would have to stick out past the base by a good stretch to obtain full cavity depth. I'd think that bit-shank flex might come into play here. But again, total ignoramus on the router here.

I have never used a router per se, but I grew up using a drill press. When I first started doing bass surgery, I did it almost exactly the same way you did, including the chisel. But I learned a trick with the drill press you might find helpful.

Instead of using a Forstner bit or any other kind of drill bit, use a straight-edged router bit. And instead of locking the depth setter for the correct depth, elevate the table. Establish the correct depth the same way you do now, just barely touching the bit to the wood surface. (If that puts the work at an inconvenient height, and if you can lock the press down at a set depth, then do that for the same effect.)

Turn the drill press on, and then slowly and carefully maneuver your bass underneath, and route out whatever you want to route out. That has all the advantages of both the drill press and the router. You use both hands to control your work, you don't have to take the bass all the way apart, and you can tape the pickups to the side the same way do with your current hop-and-drop method. You won't need a long stem on the router bit.

You might not even need a chisel.

 

[BlueTalon]

Another object is to work out the Rickenbacker Formula. I have been a firm believer for a long time that pickup placement has more to do with the "Ric Sound" than any other single aspect.

My first ever bass mod was to replace stock Rick pickups with 22-pole Carvin bass humbuckers. To my ear, it didn't lose a bit of the "Rick-ness" of its tone.

My opinion at the time was that the tonal continuity had more to do with the nature of the wood and construction than anything else. I didn't think about pickup placement, but now that you mention it, I'm sure that had a role. I just don't think it takes up as much of the pie chart as you think it does.

One thing I am certain of, there is a range in the type of pickups that can be used in place of Rick pickups and still preserve the Rick sound. And that range is probably a little broader than most people think.

 

[Flux Jetson]

I have never used a router per se, but I grew up using a drill press. When I first started doing bass surgery, I did it almost exactly the same way you did, including the chisel. But I learned a trick with the drill press you might find helpful.

Instead of using a Forstner bit or any other kind of drill bit, use a straight-edged router bit. And instead of locking the depth setter for the correct depth, elevate the table. Establish the correct depth the same way you do now, just barely touching the bit to the wood surface. (If that puts the work at an inconvenient height, and if you can lock the press down at a set depth, then do that for the same effect.)

Turn the drill press on, and then slowly and carefully maneuver your bass underneath, and route out whatever you want to route out. That has all the advantages of both the drill press and the router. You use both hands to control your work, you don't have to take the bass all the way apart, and you can tape the pickups to the side the same way do with your current hop-and-drop method. You won't need a long stem on the router bit.

You might not even need a chisel.

I used that exact process when I made my Shredbilly Tele ....

After I cut the body I wanted to radius all of the edges. So I chucked up a 1" radius bit (one with a bearing) in the drill press, and carefully raised the table until the bit met the body at just the right point. I then just worked the body all the way around until the entire thing was done. I used a much more "lazy" radius than Warmoth did and ended up really loving that well-rounded edge.

Since I'd left the neck on the Jazz bass the neckplate caused the body to sit a little unlevel, and if I would have tried to work the body around the neckplate would have hung up here and there. I was just more comfortable doing the "drill/chisel" method this time around.

It was over 120f out in the shop when I did this job so I wanted to spend as little time as possible out in that crap. As it was I was out there for over two hours anyhow. So I just went with a method I knew from metalworking instead of trying something new. This way worked out fine .... well .. fine enough!

I'm sure the method you described would work just fine. I just wimped out and went with (somewhat) familiar territory. And all of the router bits I found at Lowes were over $20, I was on a bit of a tight budget so I had to go with the $7.95 Forstner bit. Maybe next time. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Flux Jetson]

My first ever bass mod was to replace stock Rick pickups with 22-pole Carvin bass humbuckers. To my ear, it didn't lose a bit of the "Rick-ness" of its tone.

My opinion at the time was that the tonal continuity had more to do with the nature of the wood and construction than anything else. I didn't think about pickup placement, but now that you mention it, I'm sure that had a role. I just don't think it takes up as much of the pie chart as you think it does.

.. Meh .. maybe, maybe not. That's what all of these tests are for, to see what works and what doesn't. I mean if anyone knew the answers this entire excercize would be unnecessary. But I've been exposed to so many differing opinions that I am convinced no one really knows. You talk to ten people about it, you get ten different answers. One says it's the wood, another says it's the short scale, and yet another says it's the Rickenbacker pickups. Myself, I say the pickup location has the most profound affect (going by a number of basses that people have added a pickup at F24 and have produced very close emulations of that sound).

In the end, I don't really care what it ends up being, I'm open to whatever turns out to be what works.

That pie chart is divided into quite a few sections. It would only take a 20% "chunk" to be the largest single aspect. When you add every other thing that other people have attributed to that sound the piechart is cut into about ten different pieces. One piece at 20% is easily the largest single aspect. I am just trying to make a point, I have zero idea what the actual numbers would work out to be. I just believe that placing the neck pickup at roughly the 24th fret location (to tune the lows just right), and placing the bridge pickup in the ?right? location to bring out the highs has more emphasis over that sound that any other single effort. But I'm sure it has to be a total effort .. everything from string choice, pickup placement, pickup performance, to lesser degrees wood type (neck, fretboard, body), and to even lesser degrees scale length, hardware choices, paint/finish.

One thing I am certain of, there is a range in the type of pickups that can be used in place of Rick pickups and still preserve the Rick sound. And that range is probably a little broader than most people think.

I will TOTALLY agree with you there! That fact alone lends strength to the idea that it has a lot more to do with placement than any other single aspect. Making a bass out of the same materials (body, fretboard, neck, even fret type) won't produce as much of the Rick sound as pickup placement will. Same pickups won't do it as much as pickup placement does. The same materials AND the same hardware (bridge, tuners) won't have as much affect on the sound as placing the pickups properly will. Naw, see in my mind placement is the single greatest single thing that produces that sound.

I base that on at least 3 you tube vids of basses I've seen where the neck pickup is placed in the 24th fret location (or very close to it) and suddenly that sound perks up your ears just that quickly. It has EVERYTHING to do with creating the proper scoop. It has to be shaped right, and properly placed. This is something that I KNOW from doing extreme EQ tests by putting two 31 band EQ in series with one another creating a high degree of parity between cut and boost (48db). Apply a total cut in the right bandwidth, and then boost the adjacent lows and highs by quite a bit so the cut and the boosts are about 35db to 45db apart ..... Rick comes belching from the speakers.

That said if the pickups are placed properly it will provide one hell of a head start on that EQ curve so extreme EQing won't be as necessary. I've produced solid Rick tone (more correctly said would be "70s rock bass tone" .... Geddy produced it on many basses, on the album Moving Pictures he used BOTH the Jazz and the Rick, I've yet to find one person that can tell which song used which bass) with a Squier bass that has a soft maple body, maple neck, rosewood fretboard, and rather plain pickups .. the whole bass is an economy-minded instrument .. and yet, I can gete that sound from it by using really extreme eq measures. Even Geddy said it isn't difficult to make "that sound". He actually said it was HARDEST to do with the Rick! Imagine that? He said it took "a lot of work" to get the Rick to make his signature tone.

Anyhow, whatever turns out to be what works, I'm hoping these tests will provide me with a lot of data. I'm interested in producing more than just one tonal color so hopefully I'll learn something from all of this monkey business. Time (and effort) will most certainly tell!

 

[Shardik]

Someone mentioned magnetic pull. Do you worry that having all those pickups (=magnets) may affect the overall sound, no matter what pickups are selected to produce the sound?

 

[Flux Jetson]

Someone mentioned magnetic pull. Do you worry that having all those pickups (=magnets) may affect the overall sound, no matter what pickups are selected to produce the sound?

No more so than basses that have two conventional humbuckers. I've seen a lot of basses that have two dual-coil humbuckers on them. If these pickups I am using had super strong magnets and were high output pickups .... perhaps it might be an issue worthy of concern.

The comment about the magnetic pull on the strings was aimed at the idea of using four pickups placed parallel with the strings. Now you have these long magnetic fields running along a rather long distance on each string. It's not only the length of the field, but also the shape of the field that creates more string pull. I think changing the direction of how the pickup is mounted (longways) has more emphasis as a magnet is concerned .... but I could be totally wrong about that. Perhaps someone more experienced might pipe in on that issue.

Also, keep in mind that the idea behind this bass is NOT to have multitudes of very powerful pickups. The idea is to test things and reduce pickup choices, numbers of pickups, and placements until the least amount of them are used to produce the sounds I am hoping to produce.

But in any case, I do not think that four standard Jazz bass pickups are going to exert so much pull that they'll seriously impede sustain. If they do, I'll simply remove a few and do a greater number of tests with each test using fewer pickups.

Your question is all the more reason to do these tests in the first place! To find out whether or not such worries are warranted or not.

It's all about collecting data first hand.

Good question though!

 

[Shardik]

There may be no reason for concern. The only time I have experienced problems with magnetic pull was when I adjusted a guitar bridge humbucker very close to the strings. Then both sustain and attack was clearly affected. It may be different on a bass.

I think the gap between the string and each pickup may be more important than the number of pickups, but I look forward to read about your results. Sound clips would be awesome.