guitar style pups but for a bass VI style instrument

[black_labb]

the general question i am asking is, how much a pickups character would effect the sound on an instrument thats inherrently deeper than a standard guitar? the background information is below

ive started making an instrument similar in concept to a bass VI (6 string bass, but tuned E to e like a guitar, just an octave lower.). it will have a tele style body and tele bridge, so i will be making a tele bridge pup, but with longer magnets (20mm). there will be a p90 style pup in the middle and a neck pup, which i havent decided on (possibly another p90).

i want the instrument to be able to sound articulate enough to play chords even in the lowest octave. its mainly for a trio with a guitar that uses a slide mainly, so not cutting enough for a 5 piece metal band but significantly more articulate than a bridge pup on a jbass for example. i will use it for more traditional bass roles as well, but i will use a switch to put pups in series to get more inductance for a deeper sound.

my question is how should i plan on winding the pups? with guitar usually less winds will give it more top end, but being an octave lower than a guitar i doubt there will be much top end (speaking guitar spectrum), and winding a bit more to drop the resonant peak to a level that tends to be more present may be a good way to do things (atleast for the bridge and to a lesser extend the middle position).

using a tele ashtray style bridge the bridge pup is close to the saddles (closer relative to the scale length as the scale length is 30.5" on this as opposed to the 25.5 of a standard tele) so that should pick up quite a bit of the upper harmonics. i think the bridge pup is my main concern. i can mix it with the mid pos p90 for a fuller sound, but i know that i wont have an issue getting a full sound. because of the string spacing being 54mm at the bridge, i will be makign the middle p90 (and probably the neck as well) from timber, but they will be close to p90's in dimensons and will be the same poles and magnets)

the issue i feel is that i havent actually played a fender VI or similar, and dont know what to expect from the sound. i just like the idea of playing like a guitar or bass on the same instument (and it would really work well with the band im in atm)

edit: i expect to end up doing some tweaking, but i want to start as close to the mark as possible.


thanks for any help

[David Schwab]

I don't think you will get any useful chords in the lowest octave. I say this because I play bass and also guitar, and you really can't play more than double stops that low. You might be better off tuned like a baritone guitar, going from B to B.

But any clean sounding pickup should work. A lipstick tube might be a god choice for the neck position, like the old Dan-O tick-tack bass sound.

[black_labb]

im thinking that if the pup is close enough to the bridge, it's sound will be dominated by the upper harmonics. if this overpowers the lows enough, then it will sound somewhat like a guitar with a bit of an octave lower coming through. it will be played with a pick to get some more definition too. (will have to with the string spacing. worst case scenario i can just use some over the top EQ.

the lipstick style pup isnt a bad idea. was something i was thinking of doing a similar construction, doubt ill be able to find a cover that looks similar though.

not really interested in the baritone. im sure i will like it for something. worst case scenario, i'll sell it.

[mkat]

I agree with David here. The issue is the string guage, tuning frequency and your gear (amplification, speakers, effects) limit articulation on those low notes and whether the sound is even workable. To determine whether this will work for you, depending on the chord voicings you use, you could attach a pickup in that bridge area on your 5 string bass above the strings then eq it. It'll be a pain to change the eq before and after the piece you play.

I did arranging as well as play bass, keyboards and guitar and there is a reason why you don't hear more than two note chords with tight voicings on those very low notes. There are things you can get away with in a three piece, but there are certain limits before things just sound like mud or rubble.

[David Schwab]

I play chords all the time, but up past the 10th fret. I used to do a bass and vocal duet with a female singer. You can do wide interval voicings down low, but you can't clutter the chord up with 3rds and stuff.

Even on drop tuned and bari guitars, you have to stick to root and fifth power chords in the low register.

[Steve Conner]

This was always true in my experience too. Chords in the lower register on a bass just sound like crap.

I guess there might be issues similar to the ones that led to the use of stretch tuning in pianos: thick strings have upper partials that aren't exact harmonics, so the bottom strings on a piano get tuned to make these upper partials sound in tune with chording further up the keyboard, while the fundamental runs flat.

You couldn't do this on a bass without some really weird-shaped frets, and you wouldn't want to: in its traditional role of a "Thing played along with instruments", the fundamental and first few partials are what counts, while the rest of the band provides the mid and high frequency content.

[black_labb]

thanks for the input everyone. maybe the lower chords will not be useable.

thats interesting about the tunings on a piano steve. not something i would have expected.

so for more articulation on an instrument like this, would you think that a bit of an overwound pup in terms of guitar be a good idea?

[dpm]

This is something I've been dealing with in my low tuned 8 strings. For a guitar sound use guitar pickups, the extended scale makes things clearer anyway. For those low notes and chordal work my favourite thing is a bass cut circuit, which can be wired on a pot or switch, or wired permanently if desired. The only issue with that is the cutoff frequency varies depending on the input impedance of your gear. So that frequency will be higher if you plug into a pedal with 500k input impedance than it would be if you plug into a 1M amp input. It's a really neat trick that helps deal with the problem David and Steve speak of, removes the excessive boominess of your low strings that tends to overpower the treble strings, and gets the guitar sound out of the bass player's territory.

[black_labb]

This is something I've been dealing with in my low tuned 8 strings. For a guitar sound use guitar pickups, the extended scale makes things clearer anyway. For those low notes and chordal work my favourite thing is a bass cut circuit, which can be wired on a pot or switch, or wired permanently if desired. The only issue with that is the cutoff frequency varies depending on the input impedance of your gear. So that frequency will be higher if you plug into a pedal with 500k input impedance than it would be if you plug into a 1M amp input. It's a really neat trick that helps deal with the problem David and Steve speak of, removes the excessive boominess of your low strings that tends to overpower the treble strings, and gets the guitar sound out of the bass player's territory.

thats something i thought of a while ago, but i had forgotten about it. was thinking a cap in series with the output would work fairly well. a break frequency of roughly 150hz is what i thought would work well, but i can try a few values. as for keeping out of the bass players territory, i am the bass player, so for my planned usage its not a problem, but im sure it wont be the only time it gets used.

[dpm]

even better than just a cap in series is a parallel cap and resistor in series with the output combined with another resistor between hot and ground

[David Schwab]

This was always true in my experience too. Chords in the lower register on a bass just sound like crap.

I guess there might be issues similar to the ones that led to the use of stretch tuning in pianos...

It's not even that the strings are thick, but that they are stiff. Stiff strings act more as metal bars, which are more atonal.

Even with bass guitar strings, the more flexible, the more in tune the harmonics are.

You can't play chords in the lower octaves on a piano either. It's just too low.

For a guitar I'd tune it down to B. You can find baritone string sets too.

On the old Aerosmith tunes, "Back in the Saddle", "Combination", and "Draw the Line", Joe Perry is playing a Fender Bass VI. So it can be done... just maybe not chords in the lower positions.

[black_labb]

got a helpful pm from dpm with some ideas for a bass cut circuit. i think that may be something to consider if its not as articulate as i'd like. i'll use a switch so that the tone pot can act as a bass cut or a treble cut.

the strings i will be using are the fender stringset for the bass VI, so the gauge is 95 on the low E, so it wont be as stiff as standard gauge bass strings.

im not really interested in a baritone guitar, and would prefer to just limit myself to playing chords above a certain point (or just not using the E string in chords).