Pickups for a ...Frankenbacker

[Myxolydian1965]

Hey all, I am building a bass with my son. We have built others from kits, now we are looking to branch out a bit and try to make something that is +5 on the cool scale. We are trying to build a bass that has the Punchy aggressive sound of Cliff Burton's 4003 Rickenbacker but we also want to make it 5 string.

The challenge is I believe that a good part of the "rickenbacker sound" is related to the short scale of the instrument.... I thought that a multiscale fret setup would be a good compromise in that only some of the strings would be at a longer length.

Now to the real question. What pickup can I use to get that sound and can be installed at the 18 degree offset or whatever the angle calculates to be and still will give good coverage by laying under the strings properly?

any other discussion about if this is a bad idea in the first place is welcome. Understand, this is project for my son and I and we are trying to make a good bass that is WAY cool more than we are trying to make a plain bass that sounds exactly like a 1973 Rickenbacker.

thanks for the time and comments.

[Mincer]

Welcome to the forum!

You'd have to know the string spacing and see if any available pickup can accommodate it (I would suggest something with rails). My guess is that for a custom slanted pickup, you might need to contact the Custom Shop once you know the string spacing at the pickup positions.

[idsnowdog]

My Ric bass has a Seymour Duncan SRB-1b in the bridge and a 15K Firebird style mini-humbucker I found cheap on ebay in the neck. I had a SRB-1n in the neck but it was too weak and not much better than the stock toaster. The SRB-1b is an excellent bridge pickup. If you build a 5 string your choice of bass pickups is going to be limited. You can go with p-bass, j-bass, or soapbars but you wont be able to use the SRB-1b or Gibson Sidewinder pickups because they don't make 5 string versions. However you can use a 7-string X2N at the bridge and neck positions depending on the string spacing. I have a six string X2N with a neodymium magnet in my Dean Edge bass and it is great clean or distorted. It fit in the soapbar style route and I just needed to cut an adapter ring to cover the route. The X2N is by far the best sounding pickup I have heard for distorted bass.

[ICTGoober]

A Rickenbacker scale length is only a half-inch shorter than a Fender bass. The sound you're after more likely comes from the wood (mostly maple on a Rick), and the stock pickups. A multi-scale setup would work on a 5, but for the high fidelity sound you're chasing I'd suggest some Bartolini units, Lace Sensor Aluma series, or Bill Lawrence makes a wide pickup for a pedal steel that makes a great bass pickup.

[Myxolydian1965]

Bill Lawrence makes a wide pickup for a pedal steel that makes a great bass pickup.

.... thats outside the box... I like it...

I had been toying with Bartolini, I was just worried that using the Bartolini's like they use in the Dingwall or the Ibanez Multiscale would be to "New" sounding

From the earlier posts... I was thinking swamp ash body, but maybe Maple is a better way to go