Ancient Mariner Posted April 5, 2011 Author Share Posted April 5, 2011 Frank - I think you may have a very good point. The various basses linked here all have PUs in different places and all are considered to sound good to their owners. I'm starting to think that the old maxim 'if it looks right then it is right' may well be applicable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommorichards Posted April 5, 2011 Share Posted April 5, 2011 [quote name='machinehead' post='1188362' date='Apr 4 2011, 09:29 PM']I've often wondered about pickup positions. Especially when people talk about the "sweet spot" for a Stingray or similar. Surely all this changes as soon as a fretted note is played? The higher up the neck you play the more the effect is. Am I missing something? Frank.[/quote] Id assume the sweet spot refers to how good the pickup sounds in its position on all strings in all positions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brave Sir Robin Posted April 5, 2011 Share Posted April 5, 2011 Not a mudbucker, although can output masses of bass. Stacked humbucker series / parallel / single. The preamp can coax a lot of range out of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machinehead Posted April 5, 2011 Share Posted April 5, 2011 [quote name='tommorichards' post='1189041' date='Apr 5 2011, 02:28 PM']Id assume the sweet spot refers to how good the pickup sounds in its position on all strings in all positions.[/quote] Ah, but then the sweet spot is always moving so then it's sweet [font="Arial Black"]spots[/font], lots of different sweet spots. Frank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ancient Mariner Posted April 5, 2011 Author Share Posted April 5, 2011 [quote name='Brave Sir Robin' post='1189047' date='Apr 5 2011, 02:33 PM']Not a mudbucker, although can output masses of bass. Stacked humbucker series / parallel / single. The preamp can coax a lot of range out of it.[/quote] Thanks BSR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffbyrne Posted April 5, 2011 Share Posted April 5, 2011 [quote name='machinehead' post='1188362' date='Apr 4 2011, 09:29 PM']I've often wondered about pickup positions. Especially when people talk about the "sweet spot" for a Stingray or similar. Surely all this changes as soon as a fretted note is played? The higher up the neck you play the more the effect is. Am I missing something? Frank.[/quote] You have no idea how right you are - or maybe you have! G. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LawrenceH Posted April 6, 2011 Share Posted April 6, 2011 (edited) [quote name='machinehead' post='1188362' date='Apr 4 2011, 09:29 PM']I've often wondered about pickup positions. Especially when people talk about the "sweet spot" for a Stingray or similar. Surely all this changes as soon as a fretted note is played? The higher up the neck you play the more the effect is. Am I missing something? Frank.[/quote] You're right, but there are trends you can pick out. As the pickup moves towards the neck it will always get proportionately more of the fundamental compared to higher harmonics, pretty much wherever you play - until the point at which the pickup is more than halfway along the vibrating portion of the string. Which is only going to happen right at the dusty end of the fretboard, if at all. Similarly, if you think about a bridge pickup then it gets relatively little of the fundamental, and moving across just a few frets especially lower down isn't going to have a massively significant impact on that either. For the first few harmonics, then there are going to be points on the fretboard where a given pickup is at a null wrt to a particular harmonic. As you move the pickup towards the neck then this is going to lower the harmonics that are affected by this, and I suspect this will lead to a more pronounced unevenness of tone across the fretboard - having the pickup halfway along the vibrating length of the string, ie right in the null of the powerful octave harmonic, could really give an apparent drop in output for that particular fret position across the strings.* The bridge pickup should be comparatively immune to this since the harmonics affected will be higher up. If you wanted to have a vaguely scientific approach to positioning the neck pickup then I'd guess a good approach would be to calculate the position of the lower (say, octave and octave+5) harmonics for each of the first few frets, and make sure the pickup was 'between frets' for the major null points (and maxima), and ideally have the nulls between a couple of frets that are keys you don't play in all that much! Alternatively, I suppose a fat double pickup allows you more leeway as its sensing field can span either side of a null point. *edit: assuming you have trouble reproducing the fundamental to similar volume level, which is likely often the case Edited April 6, 2011 by LawrenceH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommorichards Posted April 6, 2011 Share Posted April 6, 2011 [quote name='machinehead' post='1189780' date='Apr 5 2011, 10:03 PM']Ah, but then the sweet spot is always moving so then it's sweet [font="Arial Black"]spots[/font], lots of different sweet spots. Frank.[/quote] Well, on a stingray, the pickup is in the "sweet spot" to get the best tone when playing whatever note. Its referred to by the pickup, not the sweet spot of the note. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machinehead Posted April 6, 2011 Share Posted April 6, 2011 (edited) [quote name='tommorichards' post='1189994' date='Apr 6 2011, 02:17 AM']Well, on a stingray, the pickup is in the "sweet spot" to get the best tone when playing whatever note. Its referred to by the pickup, not the sweet spot of the note.[/quote] I think you're missing my point. The relative position of the pickup changes as the string is fretted. See LaurenceH's post above, which I found very interesting. Thanks Laurence.. Frank. Edited April 6, 2011 by machinehead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ancient Mariner Posted June 11, 2011 Author Share Posted June 11, 2011 Well, I did add a second pickup: The good - It's very interactive with the P type already present, wired like a Jazz without a tone control, resulting in a wider range of tonal textures and a lot more clarity. Plus it looks interesting as long as you don't see the hacked-aboutness of the pickguard. The bad - it's interactive with the P-type pickup, and it's a little hard to predict compared to a standard tone control, plus if I ever wanted to do a Jaco that's now not such a great idea. Also the original pots are truly pants, and won't shut off the signal from either pickup* & the P-type is >> more powerful than the lipstick job. But it's done what was needed, which was to provide a greater tonal range and particularly more clarity. Now maybe If I can complete the deal for a duncan replacement I won't need it! *This explains the complete dark muddiness of the bass originally - the tone pot just doesn't shut off, and so it was continually bleeding a lot of treble off - a simple pot swap would have fixed it. D'oh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nostromo Posted June 11, 2011 Share Posted June 11, 2011 How about the late 60's re-issue Fender Tele Bass's . . . . they had a big Humbucker pickup right up close to the neck pocket. I played on of those some years ago and I really liked the tone . . as you can imagine it came across very full bodied ! ! . . . . . I think the humbucker was about half an inch away from the end of the neck. PS . . . . . really liked LawrenceH analysis above . . . . yea agree with most of that thinking Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davo-London Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 I prefer the near bridge PU positions. Indeed on my fretless Jazz I only use the bridge PU. Have a look at some of the Warwick basses as they have some less conventional PU positions. The Jazz PU position feels pretty optimum for me because I also use it to rest my thumb on when I am doing fast runs and want the minimum of string movement. Davo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waynepunkdude Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 [quote name='EssentialTension' post='1187152' date='Apr 3 2011, 10:04 PM']Lakland Decade: [/quote] Love [quote name='EssentialTension' post='1187162' date='Apr 3 2011, 10:09 PM']The Lakland Scheff (now discontinued) has a lipstick close to the neck: [/quote] Ditto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neepheid Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 [quote name='gsgbass' post='1284871' date='Jun 28 2011, 03:06 AM']Gibson has had a neck pup right up against the neck since the EB0 came out.[/quote] Except 1972-1979 when they looked like this: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 [quote name='Grand Wazoo' post='1187499' date='Apr 4 2011, 10:36 AM']You don't get closer to the neck than that, no wonder this bass is the weapon of choice of Mr. Robbie Shakespear thanks to it's deep booming reggae bass sound [/quote] Seeing as the thread's been revived, can I just point out that Robbie is clearly playing over the [b][i]middle [/i][/b]pickup in these photos, presumably getting his deep booming reggae bass sound without needing to resort to the neck puckup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkstrike Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 [quote name='Happy Jack' post='1285024' date='Jun 28 2011, 10:24 AM']Seeing as the thread's been revived, can I just point out that Robbie is clearly playing over the [b][i]middle [/i][/b]pickup in these photos, presumably getting his deep booming reggae bass sound without needing to resort to the neck puckup. [/quote] But the neck pickup could be on, regardless of where he's plucking. I'd never pluck that close to the neck, even though I often use pickups that close to the neck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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