custom shop bass pickup ideas

[Chistopher]

I posted a similar thread in the bass forum, but seeing as they can go months without a post, I figured I'd post it here.

I'm thinking of getting a custom bass pickup for my Stingray, with the idea of sort of converting it to a PJ bass type idea. One coil has a frowny eq that's more for hard hitting rumble sounds, and one coil has a smiley eq for more clarity. The coils will be in parallel and my preamp will blend between them. It'll act sort of like a rythmn and lead setting, not quite unlike a series/parallel switch, except they will both be the same volume

My question is for those of you who have gotten whacky CS orders, is this the sort of thing they can pull off? I'd ask them myself, but right now I'm just spitballing ideas and don't want them to get their hopes up for nothing over an order.

[Mincer]

Yes, they certainly can. Tell them your idea of the 2 pickups, what form factor you want, and see what they say. It won't be cheap ( custom pickups), but they can give you an idea of how to approach this project, including if any production pickups might do this.

[jeremy]

im sure they could do something like that. two coils with similar output and opposite eq would be tricky though. it would be cool if they did a low wind a5 coil near the bridge for the smile eq, and a high wind a2 for the other for the frown eq but i dont think they have the big a2 poles so thats out. they are experts so im sure they can come up with something

[alex1fly]

I posted a similar thread in the bass forum, but seeing as they can go months without a post, I figured I'd post it here.

I'm thinking of getting a custom bass pickup for my Stingray, with the idea of sort of converting it to a PJ bass type idea. One coil has a frowny eq that's more for hard hitting rumble sounds, and one coil has a smiley eq for more clarity. The coils will be in parallel and my preamp will blend between them. It'll act sort of like a rythmn and lead setting, not quite unlike a series/parallel switch, except they will both be the same volume

My question is for those of you who have gotten whacky CS orders, is this the sort of thing they can pull off? I'd ask them myself, but right now I'm just spitballing ideas and don't want them to get their hopes up for nothing over an order.

I think it's a cool idea, but I could see baking these EQ curves into a pickup making the overall bass sound weird. Not to be that guy but there are already solutions out there for achieving this kind of tonal variety on the fly. Amp modeler pedals like the programmable multi-button Sansamp and more recent iterations, plus EQ pedals, plus preamp pedals... for the cost of a custom pickup you could have a pedal that does exactly what you're describing AND a normal Stingray bass. I mean if you want to do it and this is an extra bass, sure why not go for it. But if this is your only or your main bass, I wouldn't go about reinventing the wheel... just do what zillions of bassists have done before you when they wanted to go between a mid push tone and a scooped clarity tone.

[Chistopher]

I think it's a cool idea, but I could see baking these EQ curves into a pickup making the overall bass sound weird. Not to be that guy but there are already solutions out there for achieving this kind of tonal variety on the fly. Amp modeler pedals like the programmable multi-button Sansamp and more recent iterations, plus EQ pedals, plus preamp pedals... for the cost of a custom pickup you could have a pedal that does exactly what you're describing AND a normal Stingray bass. I mean if you want to do it and this is an extra bass, sure why not go for it. But if this is your only or your main bass, I wouldn't go about reinventing the wheel... just do what zillions of bassists have done before you when they wanted to go between a mid push tone and a scooped clarity tone.

Yeah, it's more to have a custom pickup than anything. Plus, if I wanted to do what "zillions of bassists have done before" me, I would work as a delivery driver for Dominos instead of mess around with expensive hardware

[alex1fly]

Yeah, it's more to have a custom pickup than anything. Plus, if I wanted to do what "zillions of bassists have done before" me, I would work as a delivery driver for Dominos instead of mess around with expensive hardware

Lol well if the goal is to just to request a custom pickup and see what happens, you can definitely do that. If your goal is to have an expanded tonal palette then a pedal like the programmable Sansamp will do it. Bonus of the pedal is that you can use it with other instruments and for other purposes.

Just brainstorming, if I was going to mod a Stingray I'd want to add a P pickup to it. Maybe custom wire the pickups so that they play nicely together. That would be a pretty dang useful instrument.

Keep the pizza grease off your strings though - regardless of the Jaco mythology!

[jeremy]

i built a few basses with a sd alnico mm pup and qp p bass pup. kicked all sorts of ass