Pickup Arangement On Pj Bass.

[Guitars by Jake]

I am building a 4 string bass guitar, and I am setting it up for p-j (Precison/jazz) pickups. I am uzing dmarzio pickups, and I am wondering... On the p bass pickups, does it make a difference if I were to flip the routing template over, so that the pickups are in the opposite configuration? The jazz pup will still be in the bridge position, and everything will be moved a little more towards the middle, (still experimenting....looking for sweet spot) Will I throw the pickups out of phase? The main reason I would do this is cosmetics. I am building in a thumbrest, and the pickups would look better with it. Oh yeah, they will be passive, and I believe they will be single coil. Any input greatly appreciated.

[psw]

First...you should realize that the p-bass pickup is humbucking...the pair of coils are rwrp.

You could reverse them ok...but there maybe a phase difference with the single coil jazz pickup...however, reversing the wires on either (but not both) will fix any phase issues there.

I am not sure where a "sweet spot" would be on a bass...mine have had different locations...generally though, you don't want to move too far towards the neck as you want a fair bit of definition with a bass's low frequencies to avoid a "muddy" sound.

I find a passive tone control adequate to take out high frequencies for a fatter sound on bass and on a multi-pickup bass, a rotary mix control is often more useful than a selector

hope that helps a little

pete

[Guitars by Jake]

First...you should realize that the p-bass pickup is humbucking...the pair of coils are rwrp.

You could reverse them ok...but there maybe a phase difference with the single coil jazz pickup...however, reversing the wires on either (but not both) will fix any phase issues there.

I am not sure where a "sweet spot" would be on a bass...mine have had different locations...generally though, you don't want to move too far towards the neck as you want a fair bit of definition with a bass's low frequencies to avoid a "muddy" sound.

I find a passive tone control adequate to take out high frequencies for a fatter sound on bass and on a multi-pickup bass, a rotary mix control is often more useful than a selector

hope that helps a little

pete

Thanks psw. I didnt realize that the p bass was humbucking. I am generally a guitar builder, And have built very few complete basses. So, all I have to do is reverse the wires on a pickup, and Im back to normal? thats cool. It would work alot better with my layout. (interesting thumbrest design, pickups are in the way.) I was just thinking a little farther up from the bridge than normal. and I was going to wire it quite basic. each pickup gets its own volume control, and there will be a mid and bass tone control. Thanks aain for the tips.