3-pickup bass

[BlueTalon]

Enough progress has been made that I can now move this from the out-of-the-box thread to the build-in-progress thread.  The starting point, as some of you may remember:

I just got a couple of pictures from the guy who's doing the electronics.  Looking pretty good so far!  I'm stoked!

 

[BlueTalon]

Woohoo!!!  Another update from my tone guy, Michael at Turnstyle Switch! 

More good news.  I got the neck on it and WHOA does this bass sound good!!  These pickups not only sound amazing but work exceptionally well with the Turnstyle switch.  Even if these were not noise canceling, they would be worth the price just on tone quality alone.  The clarity of them reminds me of the Fralin pickups I have in my Tele.


The BrozTone setting with everything wide open is crazy sweet sounding.  Reminiscent of the Seinfeld J-Bass tone but the middle pickup adds a whole new complexity to the tone without even the slightest hint of mud.

For anyone interested, there are three Fender split-coil Super 55 J pickups, two neck + one bridge.  The bridge pickup is located in the normal Fender bridge J-pickup position, and the others are spaced 2" apart.


Oh, and "BrozTone" + "everything wide open" = all three pickups on.  And all of the tone controls have no-load pots.




P.S.  Is this thread boring?  48 looks and nary a comment...

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Not boring in the least!  Loving the progress.

 

[greywolf]

like the nice clean control, shielded control cavity

 

[Cagey]

P.S.  Is this thread boring?  48 looks and nary a comment...

It's a beautiful piece of work, and I'm sure those who've seen it are impressed. I know I am.

I'm also sure you're aware as a bass player that guitar players are rarely impressed with basses or their players. They tend to write them off as subwoofers more than anything else, usually because that's what the vast majority of bass players are. There simply aren't that many John Entwistles, Geddy Lees or Michael Anthonys out there.

So, don't take it personally. This site is more guitar-centric, and as a result the majority of the crowd wants to see blood, guts and burning bodies! Veins between their teeth! <grin>

 

[BlueTalon]

like the nice clean control, shielded control cavity

Thank you!  I can't claim any credit for the neat wiring -- Michael at Turnstyle did that.  But I did put a lot of time and attention to detail in that shielding (I even used dental tools to apply parts of it).  And copper.  I used a lot of it.  I made sure everything was connected to everything.  Underneath the bridge, there is a copper foundation that is almost exactly the width and length of the whole bridge grounded to the control cavity.  I even used copper tubing in the drilled channels between pickup routes and the control cavity.  Overkill, I know.  But I figured if I was going to mess up anywhere, I was going to err on the side of bulletproof. 

The nice thing about copper is you can solder it, which allowed me to be both thorough and creative.  For example, I did the best I could to be sure the copper foil in the pickup routes was fully connected to the copper tubing between the routes.  But just in case, I used a standard ground wire also, soldering both ends to the pickup and control cavity respectively.  But I did it as inconspicuously as I could, and then I covered it with more foil.  So from the control cavity, all shielding ground wires are completely invisible.

 

[BlueTalon]

I'm also sure you're aware as a bass player that guitar players are rarely impressed with basses or their players. They tend to write them off as subwoofers more than anything else, usually because that's what the vast majority of bass players are. There simply aren't that many John Entwistles, Geddy Lees or Michael Anthonys out there.

So, don't take it personally. This site is more guitar-centric, and as a result the majority of the crowd wants to see blood, guts and burning bodies! Veins between their teeth! <grin>

Oh, I'm quite aware of the guitar-centricness of this site.  But people here seem to appreciate quality even when it's regarding a bass, so it was mildly disturbing to be that seemingly invisible.


But it's all OK now.  I just received some internet validation, so my personhood remains intact.

 

[bagman67]

  I just received some internet validation, so my personhood remains intact.

QUote of the day.  Now you're double-validated!

But seriously - that's a handsome looking bass you have going there.  I wish I had something more intelligent to contribute.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

The devil's in the details too.  You can't very well show off the shielding and wiring at a show.  Many a guitar player will see a 3 pickup bass, and if they notice, "how many pickups do they usually have?" might follow.  It's a black, albeit classic, bass with all black hardware.  Trust me, it isn't lost on us.  How 'bout some more shots of that neck?

 

[BlueTalon]

The devil's in the details too.  You can't very well show off the shielding and wiring at a show.

 
Tru dat.  But the Work in Progress thread seems like a natural place to do it.  :icon_tongue:

Many a guitar player will see a 3 pickup bass, and if they notice, "how many pickups do they usually have?" might follow.  It's a black, albeit classic, bass with all black hardware.  Trust me, it isn't lost on us.  How 'bout some more shots of that neck?

I have gotten quite a lot of that already, including a couple of queries on if it will be switched like a strat. (No.) 
More neck shots will come soon enough.  What you might find interesting regarding the neck is that I got a wenge pen blank that has grain pattern almost as striking as the fretboard.  I had a guy at WoodCraft slice it into 1/8" slices.  I found some sections that almost match the fretboard, and I am going to make them into between-the-pickup thumbrests.  Hopefully, the end result will be an optical trick as well as look cool.

You mention the devil in the details, and it occurs to me that I have been a little skimpy on the details.  Allow me to rectify.
Both the body and the neck were showcase items.  The neck is wenge on bubinga, nickle frets, black TUSQ nut.
The body is alder.  I had a custom pickup route done (duh).  The bridge pickup is in the normal Fender Jazz bridge pickup position, the other two were custom routes 2" apart from each other.
The bridge is a Schaller.
The tone system is the unique-est thing about this bass.  What you see is four in-line concentric controls, and one barrel switch.  Each pickup has a volume and tone control, but the tone control will only knock off a little bit of the highs.  Then there's a master volume and tone control, located closest to the jack.  That tone control's full range is what you would get in about a half-turn on normal tone controls.  (I have been told that normally, multiple tone controls like that is a bad idea, but Michael found a work-around.)
The barrel switch is a 6-position switch.  In the first position, I have full manual control over all the pickups.  I select which pickups I want or don't want with the volume control of each pickup.  I get the mix I want, then control the whole thing with the master controls.  The other five positions are tone presets.  They are:
P-bass
J-bass
Rick
T-bird
Overdrive
In each of those positions, the electronics are pre-set, so the individual pickup controls don't apply, just the master controls.

Oh, and everything on the body is black.  In case you were wondering.

Once I get the body back, I am going to take the body, neck, and tuner hardware to Mike Lull, and have him assemble it, set it up, and Plek it.  The end result should be a perfect bass.

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

For anyone interested, there are three Fender split-coil Super 55 J pickups, two neck + one bridge.  The bridge pickup is located in the normal Fender bridge J-pickup position, and the others are spaced 2" apart.

Oh, and "BrozTone" + "everything wide open" = all three pickups on.  And all of the tone controls have no-load pots.

AWESOME!  My brain saw the # of pots & thought "active preamp! I wonder how the switching works..." then read the description.  Someday, I'd like to see someone wire a P-bass or J-bass like a strat, with 3 pickups wired to a 5 way + VTT, but this solution actually seems like it would be more practical. 

Is that pronounced "Brahz tohwn" or "Brohs tohwn"?  I'm thinking "It's a tone circuit for Bros!"  :icon_jokercolor:

P.S.  Is this thread boring?  48 looks and nary a comment...

I saw it earlier on my iPad, but don't really like typing on it; haven't posted since then.  I assure you, though, I did have an audible reaction to the awesome.  :headbang:

 

[BlueTalon]

AWESOME!  My brain saw the # of pots & thought "active preamp! I wonder how the switching works..." then read the description.  Someday, I'd like to see someone wire a P-bass or J-bass like a strat, with 3 pickups wired to a 5 way + VTT, but this solution actually seems like it would be more practical. 

Is that pronounced "Brahz tohwn" or "Brohs tohwn"?  I'm thinking "It's a tone circuit for Bros!"  :icon_jokercolor:

It rhymes with the flower "rose", so "Brohs".  And the bass is passive (not sure why I never explicitly mentioned that before).


I like strats, except for two things.  I hate the single coil noise a lot of them seem to get, and I hate the fact that you can never have all three pickups on at any one time the way it's typically wired.  (My strat-owning guitar-playing friend calls the single coil noise "the price of good tone."  I don't buy it.  Never have.)


It's funny to me how many people like that 3-pickup, 5-way-switch strat configuration, though.  I think the only reason you haven't seen a bass wired that way is that there are so few 3-pickup basses.  For some reason, three pickups are completely acceptable and not unusual on a guitar, but the bass world seems to exist in a 2-pickup-maximum universe.


Michael (@Turnstyle) and I discussed the roll of tradition in the acceptance of things the way they are because that's the way things were.  It seems to me that one or two pickups on a bass is a paradigm.  Once that paradigm shatters enough for 3-pickup basses to become commonplace (if it ever does), I believe it's inevitable that you will see strat-style switching on a bass. 


The context of that discussion specifically was tone control, especially on passive instruments.  It's mostly the same control knob with the same capacitor that does the same job -- even though half of what it does is completely unusable.  (Nobody ever turns the tone knob all the way unless they temporarily want some weird effect.)  So we tried something different.  So far, so good.


:hello2:

I saw it earlier on my iPad, but don't really like typing on it; haven't posted since then.  I assure you, though, I did have an audible reaction to the awesome.  :headbang:

Thanks for the compliment!

 

[Cagey]

I like strats, except for two things.  I hate the single coil noise a lot of them seem to get, and I hate the fact that you can never have all three pickups on at any one time the way it's typically wired.  (My strat-owning guitar-playing friend calls the single coil noise "the price of good tone."  I don't buy it.  Never have.)

I'm with you. Can't stand noise. Over the years, I've developed a zero-tolerance policy about it. If it can't sound good and be quiet about it, then piss on it. Fortunately, choices abound for that philosophy these days, many without compromise.

I have wired a couple Strats with 3 mini-switches. I've since reversed my philosophy on those. They're too much trouble and don't bring anything to the party. Seemed like a good idea at the time - I could finally mix the neck and bridge, have all three pickups on or all three off, none of which you can't do with a 5 way blade switch and still have the traditional choices. But, it turns out the neck/bridge mix sounds like kukka, as does the all on choice. All off sounds like a good idea, but you always had that feature by virtue of having a volume knob. So, piss on that, too. The blade switch in its traditional wiring is a Good Thing.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

AWESOME!  My brain saw the # of pots & thought "active preamp! I wonder how the switching works..." then read the description.  Someday, I'd like to see someone wire a P-bass or J-bass like a strat, with 3 pickups wired to a 5 way + VTT, but this solution actually seems like it would be more practical. 

Is that pronounced "Brahz tohwn" or "Brohs tohwn"?  I'm thinking "It's a tone circuit for Bros!"  :icon_jokercolor:

It rhymes with the flower "rose", so "Brohs".  And the bass is passive (not sure why I never explicitly mentioned that before).


I like strats, except for two things.  I hate the single coil noise a lot of them seem to get, and I hate the fact that you can never have all three pickups on at any one time the way it's typically wired.  (My strat-owning guitar-playing friend calls the single coil noise "the price of good tone."  I don't buy it.  Never have.)


It's funny to me how many people like that 3-pickup, 5-way-switch strat configuration, though.  I think the only reason you haven't seen a bass wired that way is that there are so few 3-pickup basses.  For some reason, three pickups are completely acceptable and not unusual on a guitar, but the bass world seems to exist in a 2-pickup-maximum universe.


Michael (@Turnstyle) and I discussed the roll of tradition in the acceptance of things the way they are because that's the way things were.  It seems to me that one or two pickups on a bass is a paradigm.  Once that paradigm shatters enough for 3-pickup basses to become commonplace (if it ever does), I believe it's inevitable that you will see strat-style switching on a bass. 


The context of that discussion specifically was tone control, especially on passive instruments.  It's mostly the same control knob with the same capacitor that does the same job -- even though half of what it does is completely unusable.  (Nobody ever turns the tone knob all the way unless they temporarily want some weird effect.)  So we tried something different.  So far, so good.


:hello2:

I saw it earlier on my iPad, but don't really like typing on it; haven't posted since then.  I assure you, though, I did have an audible reaction to the awesome.  :headbang:

Thanks for the compliment!

Not to hijack, but my next project will be something like a Landing Bass.  The body platform will be P-Bass with Strat/P-Bass hybrid pickguard, 5-way switch, 3 pickups, V-T-T.

 

[BlueTalon]

I'm with you. Can't stand noise. Over the years, I've developed a zero-tolerance policy about it. If it can't sound good and be quiet about it, then piss on it. Fortunately, choices abound for that philosophy these days, many without compromise.

I have wired a couple Strats with 3 mini-switches. I've since reversed my philosophy on those. They're too much trouble and don't bring anything to the party. Seemed like a good idea at the time - I could finally mix the neck and bridge, have all three pickups on or all three off, none of which you can't do with a 5 way blade switch and still have the traditional choices. But, it turns out the neck/bridge mix sounds like kukka, as does the all on choice. All off sounds like a good idea, but you always had that feature by virtue of having a volume knob. So, piss on that, too. The blade switch in its traditional wiring is a Good Thing.

According to Michael (Turnstyle) regarding my bass, "The BrozTone setting with everything wide open is crazy sweet sounding.  Reminiscent of the Seinfeld J-Bass tone but the middle pickup adds a whole new complexity to the tone without even the slightest hint of mud."  So I'm wondering, when your strat was neck-bridge or all on and sounded like "kukka", do you think it might have had something to do with the particular pickups you were using?  Or do you think it more of a general might-work-on-bass-but-doesn't-on-guitar?  Or do you have particular taste in tone, and it just didn't fit?

Michael is of the opinion that my pickups really help make the sound as good as it is.  That might sound like Captain Obvious, but we're talking about all-on and other unique configurations -- maybe those sound crappy with different pickups. 
Something else my bass allows me to do is have one pickup on full, and the others at about 2/3, and I don't think I could do that with a 5-way switch controlling the pickups.

Not to hijack, but my next project will be something like a Landing Bass.  The body platform will be P-Bass with Strat/P-Bass hybrid pickguard, 5-way switch, 3 pickups, V-T-T.

Well, the thread title is "3-pickup bass", so technically it isn't a hijack.  Very cool looking bass!  If I didn't have mine, I'd be envious.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I won't be using EMGs and these are 30 and 32" scale lengths, whereas mine will be 34".  I've got a Strat and P-Bass pickguard I can overlay on each other, trace, and have cut.  With the right roller bit, a router and an existing Strat, a template for the cavity can be made quite easily.

 

[Cagey]

According to Michael (Turnstyle) regarding my bass, "The BrozTone setting with everything wide open is crazy sweet sounding.  Reminiscent of the Seinfeld J-Bass tone but the middle pickup adds a whole new complexity to the tone without even the slightest hint of mud."  So I'm wondering, when your strat was neck-bridge or all on and sounded like "kukka", do you think it might have had something to do with the particular pickups you were using?  Or do you think it more of a general might-work-on-bass-but-doesn't-on-guitar?  Or do you have particular taste in tone, and it just didn't fit?

Probably all of the above. I could have played around with installing different pickups in different positions until hell wouldn't have it or I found something that worked, but why? I do a helluva lotta work on a helluva lotta different guitars, but I'm not really an R&D shop. I do what works based on experience, with a little experimentation here and there to test or prove out different ideas. The scheme we're talking about didn't work out well for me, but as your questions expose, there are a number of variables involved, not the least of which is my own personal taste. Maybe I could have handed one of those Strats to another player who would have loved it. In fact, I got the idea from seeing Mark Knopfler play a guitar set up that way, and I thought it was ingenious. Reality taught me different, but I may have had a less than ideal implementation.

The other thing I didn't care for was how much attention all those switches required. For instance, if I had the bridge/middle pickups on and wanted to play the neck, I had to turn off two switches and turn one on. This was a serious pain in the shorts. To do it with push-pulls would have made it substantially worse. With a blade, you just slap the little rascal into place and call it a love story. I suppose if you're just noodling around in the basement/bedroom/studio, that's fine. But, when you're playing live you often don't have time to be playing games with all kinds of controls.

Not that I play out much, but at one time I did and hope to again some day, so I don't want to develop any bad habits.

 

[croquet hoop]

The barrel switch is a 6-position switch.  In the first position, I have full manual control over all the pickups.  I select which pickups I want or don't want with the volume control of each pickup.  I get the mix I want, then control the whole thing with the master controls.  The other five positions are tone presets.  They are:
P-bass
J-bass
Rick
T-bird
Overdrive
In each of those positions, the electronics are pre-set, so the individual pickup controls don't apply, just the master controls.

When I began to read the description of the electronics, I thought "ugh, that looks like a hell of a Rube Goldberg machine" (I had tons of pots & mini switches on a guitar once, before I realized that more possibilities in theory is not necessarily better in practice) but this switch looks like a great idea. The possibility to dial everything as you want and experiment, and to select great sounds in a second — you have the best of both worlds here.

 

[BlueTalon]

When I began to read the description of the electronics, I thought "ugh, that looks like a hell of a Rube Goldberg machine" (I had tons of pots & mini switches on a guitar once, before I realized that more possibilities in theory is not necessarily better in practice) but this switch looks like a great idea. The possibility to dial everything as you want and experiment, and to select great sounds in a second — you have the best of both worlds here.

Thanks!  And actually, those other tone presets are a lot more specific than just P-bass, J-bass, Rick, etc.  When we were originally talking about what other tones to include, Michael mentioned Chris Squire's Rick sound, and I told him I'm more of a Geddy Lee Rick sound guy, and I sent him links to clips of early Rush.  The J-bass tone is based on the playing and sound of Tom Wilbur of General Clusterfunk, and the T-bird tone is based off an Epiphone T-bird demo.  The more Michael knows, the more he can do -- and in my particular case, having three crystal-clear pickups just gives him more tools to precisely get the sounds he's trying to nail.


BTW, Michael about himself:  "I am an Electronics Engineer by trade so Turnstyle has been the blend of the nerd side of me with the musician side of me."


I guess I should point out that on my bass, if this hasn't already been made clear, the rotary switch is a tone selector, not a pickup/pickup-combination selector.  Michael originally suggested using the switch as a pickup switch -- but to me, since the alternative of specific tones existed, and since I could select pickups manually with volume controls, using any of the switch positions on selecting pickups seemed a waste of a switch position.  So I had him disassociate the switch with any thoughts of pickup selection, and that's how we proceeded.

 

[BlueTalon]

According to Michael (Turnstyle) regarding my bass, "The BrozTone setting with everything wide open is crazy sweet sounding.  Reminiscent of the Seinfeld J-Bass tone but the middle pickup adds a whole new complexity to the tone without even the slightest hint of mud."  So I'm wondering, when your strat was neck-bridge or all on and sounded like "kukka", do you think it might have had something to do with the particular pickups you were using?  Or do you think it more of a general might-work-on-bass-but-doesn't-on-guitar?  Or do you have particular taste in tone, and it just didn't fit?

Probably all of the above. I could have played around with installing different pickups in different positions until hell wouldn't have it or I found something that worked, but why? I do a helluva lotta work on a helluva lotta different guitars, but I'm not really an R&D shop. I do what works based on experience, with a little experimentation here and there to test or prove out different ideas. The scheme we're talking about didn't work out well for me, but as your questions expose, there are a number of variables involved, not the least of which is my own personal taste. Maybe I could have handed one of those Strats to another player who would have loved it. In fact, I got the idea from seeing Mark Knopfler play a guitar set up that way, and I thought it was ingenious. Reality taught me different, but I may have had a less than ideal implementation.

The other thing I didn't care for was how much attention all those switches required. For instance, if I had the bridge/middle pickups on and wanted to play the neck, I had to turn off two switches and turn one on. This was a serious pain in the shorts. To do it with push-pulls would have made it substantially worse. With a blade, you just slap the little rascal into place and call it a love story. I suppose if you're just noodling around in the basement/bedroom/studio, that's fine. But, when you're playing live you often don't have time to be playing games with all kinds of controls.

Not that I play out much, but at one time I did and hope to again some day, so I don't want to develop any bad habits.

I hope I didn't sound like I was telling you you should have continued trying different combinations ad infinitum.  I just asked for your assessment of possible reasons why what you tried didn't work for you -- and you gave a complete answer, which I appreciate.  And the net result of your research was finding what works for you the best is the same as what you started with.  That's not a waste of research IMO.