Theoretical question about pickups...

[Munurmunuh]

If you took a p-bass...

...removed the split pickup...

...and replaced it, in exactly the same spot, with a humbucker that, aside from the obvious, was as similar as possible to the split pickup

...then what would be the tonal consequences? Which of the elements of the typical p-bass tone are the ones that would be lost? What tonal characters would be added? 

 (I can see that most single humbucker basses differ from this picture, so I don't need to be told that it's a bad idea etc etc, I'm just curious to know)

[bertbass]

In my opinion you'd lose the definition of the note the lower in pitch you go.

[ikay]

The neck pickup in this demo of the Sims Super Quad is close enough to the P position to give you some idea. The first 30secs demo the neck pup in split coil mode (standard P) followed by humbucker (parallel), then single coil. 

 

Edited April 18, 2021 by ikay

[Munurmunuh]

1 hour ago, ikay said:

The neck pickup in this demo of the Sims Super Quad is close enough to the P position to give you some idea. The first 30secs demo the neck pup in split coil mode (standard P) followed by humbucker (parallel), then single coil. 

 

That was fantastic thank you. The answer to my question is very different to what I was expecting. 

When I was much younger, I was a guitarist and very much, as it were, a fan of Team Gibson. I'm still trying getting my head around the refusal of my love for humbuckers on guitars to transfer to basses.