Bass pickups .... wots the difference?

axisus

With a guitar I pretty much know what to expect from Humbuckers, SCs, P90s etc, but I feel a tad lost with basses.

Why would one choose single coil pickups over Humbuckers for instance? 

I'm thinking of making a bass but I really don't know what to think about pickups so any pointers appreciated. 

Funkfingers

axisus said:

Why would one choose single coil pickups over Humbuckers, for instance? 

Reason 1 - Historical precedent. 
A lot of favourite recordings feature Fender electric bass guitar. Anyone seeking to imitate those recordings will get a closer facsimile by using a bass guitar with the same Fender format pickup(s).

Reason 2 - Excessive midrange fatness.
Just as with guitar, side-by-side dual coil bass guitar pickups have plenty of midrange "fatness". In some musical contexts, the extra midrange frequency content can mess up the overall mix of a piece of music. 

On many modern bass guitars with side-by-side format dual coil pickups, the control harness will include onboard active equalisation. Reducing the mid range frequency band can result in a more usable bass guitar sound overall.

Reason 3 - Unique pickup construction.
Some popular electric bass guitar pickups are constructed in unusual, nay unique, ways. Some times, it is beyond the capabilities of fancy electronics to reproduce the sounds of crude 1940s technology. This may be the only way to get a specific bass guitar tone. 

Reason 4 - Positioning
As with guitars, where a pickup is positioned along the length of a bass guitar string has some effect on the tone produced. Certain designs lend themselves well to one position but sound terrible in another.

For instance, adding a Precision Bass pickup to a Jazz Bass. There is a way to extend the stock pickup cavity that removes as little body wood as possible and leaves the new pickup surrounded by a visually pleasing border of pickguard plastic. Unfortunately, this position is closer to the nut than where the pickup goes on a Precision Bass. The difference is sufficient to spoil the sound.

The EBMM Stingray pickup goes best in the position where we are accustomed to seeing it on Stingray and Sterling basses. The original Sabre Bass and the Stingray HH have a second pickup closer to the neck. IMO, this never sounds anything like as good as the exact same pickup in the "sweet spot".

Reason 5 - Combinations
Some bass guitar combinations seem to compliment each other. Others seem to tread on each other's toes, so to speak.

Stingray + short Jazz Bass combine nicely.

Stingray + Precision do not. I would govern this pairing with a selector switch rather than a blend pot.

crunchman

The majority of Classic recordings were made with a Precision.  That's probably the sound in your head.

axisus

@Funkfingers I gave you a wow for such a comprehensive answer! thanks.

Funkfingers

Well, somebody had to cover for Bridgehouse while he has a siesta. :-p

ICBM

It's also worth remembering that with almost no exceptions - only two that I can think of among professional-quality basses, and one of those is obsolete, although now reissued - all basses use hum cancelling pickups even if they're not "humbuckers" in the normal sense of two coils side by side. The standard P-Bass pickup is a split-coil humbucker, as is the mini version found on the Mustang Bass. Even if they are single coils, they're in RWRP pairs like a Jazz so using both together is also hum-cancelling.

The reason for this is that 50/60Hz hum is a more serious problem for basses than guitars because it's right in the frequency range of the instrument, as opposed to below it where it can largely be rolled off. (50Hz is just sharp of the low G.)

The exceptions are the '51-style Fender P-Bass - technically obsolete, as it was replaced by the '57-style split pickup version - and the Rickenbacker 4001/4003, which is just perverse!

In fact, a P/J configuration is also a slight problem because it has one hum-cancelling pickup and one not, so with both pickups on it's inherently noisier than a straight Jazz.

For what it's worth I have humbuckers in my Rick, exactly for this reason. Contrary to what you might expect, it doesn't stop it sounding like one at all - the unique sound of these basses is more in the construction, hardware and pickup positions than it is in the pickups themselves.

guitarfishbay

Funkfingers said:

Reason 5 - Combinations
Some bass guitar combinations seem to compliment each other. Others seem to tread on each other's toes, so to speak.

Stingray + short Jazz Bass combine nicely.

Stingray + Precision do not. I would govern this pairing with a selector switch rather than a blend pot.

Have you tried a Sandberg VM?    That's a P/Ray combo and I think it sounds pretty good.  Granted the Ray style pickup is closer to the bridge, and the P position is reversed but that's my preference any time a P pickup is paired with a bridge pickup.  I don't like the different mid scoops relative to the bottom and top two pairs of strings on a PJ with the traditional P layout, it is too scooped on the low strings for my tastes.

I have a HH stingray and while the neck pickup on its own isn't anything to write home about the position with the inner coils sounds great to me.  

Re: excessive midrange fatness I agree, this is often an issue when humbuckers are wired in series.  From what I understand Stingrays are wired in parallel, and on my L2K Tribute I pretty much always leave it in parallel as the series mode is too thick.  The only bass pickups I've found I like in series are Precision type split pickups.  Running two single coils together in series can work well but in general parallel seems to better suit what I'm looking for in a bass tone.

guitarfishbay

ICBM said:

In fact, a P/J configuration is also a slight problem because it has one hum-cancelling pickup and one not, so with both pickups on it's inherently noisier than a straight Jazz.

A lot of PJ basses have a hum-cancelling Jazz bass pickup for precisely this reason.

In the case of a PJ that makes most sense.  On an actual Jazz bass I prefer real singles when it comes to the blended pickup tone, you seem to get a more pleasing scoop that way, but it depends how much you use the blend position vs the individual pickups and how much noise is an issue.

EricTheWeary

A reasonable number of bassists use the pick up as a thumb rest so if you get experimental with placement that wouldn't work for them. 

I find active pick ups on a bass quite interesting, bit of a mind f**k after guitar electrics. I know in the past I've compared them to the controls on hi fi - so they actually do something and full up isn't 'home' like it is with passive electronics. Just such a lot of control from the instrument itself. 

I wonder why P type split coil pick ups never caught on for guitar ( I think G and L have used them?) as they seem such a good solution.    

Bridgehouse

EricTheWeary said:

A reasonable number of bassists use the pick up as a thumb rest so if you get experimental with placement that wouldn't work for them. 

I find active pick ups on a bass quite interesting, bit of a mind f**k after guitar electrics. I know in the past I've compared them to the controls on hi fi - so they actually do something and full up isn't 'home' like it is with passive electronics. Just such a lot of control from the instrument itself. 

I wonder why P type split coil pick ups never caught on for guitar ( I think G and L have used them?) as they seem such a good solution.    

Do you mean active pickups or active electronics (ie onboard preamp) ?

dogload

EricTheWeary said:

I wonder why P type split coil pick ups never caught on for guitar ( I think G and L have used them?) as they seem such a good solution.    

The Fender Electric XII used split coil pickups and they sound great. However i have never tried it as a six-string (I keep meaning to when I re-string but always forget and end up stringing a few pairs before remembering the plan!).
Johnny Winter used to use a XII as a six-string and that sounded pretty good. I would rather like a Jazzmaster with split coils on it.

Maybe it's something to do with the look - they do look a little out of place on a guitar for some reason.

Funkfingers

Bridgehouse said:

Do you mean active pickups or active electronics (ie onboard preamp) ?

I assume that ETW meant active EQ rather than pickups.

My modified MIG Warwick Corvette Standard has active pickups running through simple 25k roll-off pots for volume, volume, tone.  The EQ can be adjusted by two micro switches in the pickup cover.

On my old EBMM Stingray 2-band Baxandall EQ, full up is maximum boost. Fully down is a bit bland and lifeless. Hence, the typical working position for these controls is somewhere in the middle of their rotational range.

Much of what I would wish to do with cutting or boosting can be achieved with a sweepable, semi-parametric midrange control.

Enough about me, already.

EricTheWeary

Bridgehouse said:

EricTheWeary said:

A reasonable number of bassists use the pick up as a thumb rest so if you get experimental with placement that wouldn't work for them. 

I find active pick ups on a bass quite interesting, bit of a mind f**k after guitar electrics. I know in the past I've compared them to the controls on hi fi - so they actually do something and full up isn't 'home' like it is with passive electronics. Just such a lot of control from the instrument itself. 

I wonder why P type split coil pick ups never caught on for guitar ( I think G and L have used them?) as they seem such a good solution.    

Do you mean active pickups or active electronics (ie onboard preamp) ?

Ahh, I guess I do mean an onboard pre amp. 

dogload said:

EricTheWeary said:

I wonder why P type split coil pick ups never caught on for guitar ( I think G and L have used them?) as they seem such a good solution.    

The Fender Electric XII used split coil pickups and they sound great. However i have never tried it as a six-string (I keep meaning to when I re-string but always forget and end up stringing a few pairs before remembering the plan!).
Johnny Winter used to use a XII as a six-string and that sounded pretty good. I would rather like a Jazzmaster with split coils on it.

Maybe it's something to do with the look - they do look a little out of place on a guitar for some reason.

Just looking at pictures of the XII and it does look a bit odd, but then so much about guitars is what we are used to. The Fender Wide Range humbucker is, I guess, a near relative. 

ICBM

EricTheWeary said:

The Fender Wide Range humbucker is, I guess, a near relative. 

No, the WRH is a normal two-coil humbucker - albeit with a different magnet arrangement than a Gibson-type one, the polepieces are rod magnets as they are in a Fender single-coil - it just has half the polepieces fitted upside down!



Fender "reissue" WRHs aren't built like that though, they're basically cheap generic humbuckers under the covers.

EricTheWeary

ICBM said:

EricTheWeary said:

The Fender Wide Range humbucker is, I guess, a near relative. 

No, the WRH is a normal two-coil humbucker - albeit with a different magnet arrangement than a Gibson-type one, the polepieces are rod magnets as they are in a Fender single-coil - it just has half the polepieces fitted upside down!



Fender "reissue" WRHs aren't built like that though, they're basically cheap generic humbuckers under the covers.

i was trying to understand this

https://www.creamery-pickups.co.uk/custom-handwound-pickups-from-the-creamery/domino-split-coil-single-coil-voiced-humbuckers.html#CLASSICDOMINO:

which seems to be a wide range reissue but talks about having a single coil sound.

ICBM

EricTheWeary said:

i was trying to understand this

https://www.creamery-pickups.co.uk/custom-handwound-pickups-from-the-creamery/domino-split-coil-single-coil-voiced-humbuckers.html#CLASSICDOMINO:

which seems to be a wide range reissue but talks about having a single coil sound.

He's removed the six other polepieces, so it's then more like the split-coil pickup except that it still has two full-size coils.

EricTheWeary

ICBM said:

EricTheWeary said:

i was trying to understand this

https://www.creamery-pickups.co.uk/custom-handwound-pickups-from-the-creamery/domino-split-coil-single-coil-voiced-humbuckers.html#CLASSICDOMINO:

which seems to be a wide range reissue but talks about having a single coil sound.

He's removed the six other polepieces, so it's then more like the split-coil pickup except that it still has two full-size coils.

Ahh and oh. 

None of this is helping the OP. But interesting. 

Funkfingers

ICBM said:

Genuine Fender WRH. I am not worthy.