Bass/guitar Pickups

[Odin]

What is actually the difference between guitar and bass pickups?

For distortion on a bass what would work best, a git or a bass pup?

[skibum5545]

Among other things, bass pickups aren't designed to overdrive your amp, so they're nowhere near so hot as a guitar pickup. Other than that, they're designed to give an entirely different tone than a guitar pickup, so there are subtle differences in the design.

One notable exception is EMG pickups, where the guitar pickups and bass pickups are essentially the same. For instance, the DC series bass pickups are just the EMG 85 in a bigger box. One thing I've always wanted to try was using the EMG 7 string guitar 81/85 set as bass pickups, as they're the same size as the 35-size bass pickups. Check out www.emginc.com for more info, if you care to.

For distortion, your best bet would be a nice high-output bass humbucker, like a MusicMan style one, or even a Rio Grande Pitbull, which I hear are good. Either way, since bass amps don't do gain like a guitar amp does, you'll probably want a distortion or overdrive pedal; the Boss Super Overdrive (I think that's what it's called; it's the yellow one) for guitar should work, but Ibanez also makes a bass distortion pedal that I have yet to try.

[JoeAArthur]

I haven't tried one but I've heard they are supposed to be good - Dimarzio makes a bass version of their high output X2N... called the X2N-B.

[SwedishLuthier]

Among other things, bass pickups aren't designed to overdrive your amp, so they're nowhere near so hot as a guitar pickup. Other than that, they're designed to give an entirely different tone than a guitar pickup, so there are subtle differences in the design.

I have to disagree a little bit.

I made a weird instrument some years ago. It was a 4-string electric steel string ukulele. The string spacing was perfect for half a P-bas pickup. As a matter of fact the other half found its way into an electric mandolin.

Anyway the pickup has enough output to throw the customers Peavey amp into heavy distortion. And the sound is so nice that I’m planning to make a 6-string version of a P-bass pickup for tests in a guitar.

[badsnap]

I am not up on PU design but that p-bass mod for guitar sounds very intriguing...let us know what happens. As for bass distortion, the old vintage Bass Balls is OUTSTANDING and I would think could be had on ebay rather inexpensively...just a thought...Rog

EDIT: OK - I just looked on ebay and electro-harmonix has reissued Bass Balls so no significant savings will be had (about $80.00 US).

[Pr3Va1L]

I've always been wanting to try an active bartolini on a guitar... I mean... the pickup desings are basically mostly the same for guitar and bass, biggest difference being the string spacing. So, I'd love to see someone try a blade-type bass pickup on a guitar to see what the sound is like.