In the last days I've built a 4 string fretless cigar-box guitar and since I think it turned out fairly well as a first project, I started building a 3 string fretless short scale cigar box bass as well! I ordered two cheap rail-pickups and I'm planning to install them, one on each instrument.
Being these instruments (semi?) hollow body, how shall I install the pickups on them? Shall they be attached to the top soundboard plate and be free to vibrate with it (it vibrates a lot and for very long)? or shall they be anchored to the solid "backbone" which is connected to the the neck? Or to both? I saw a video where a guy was attaching the pickup to the soundboard and putting rubber between it and the "backbone" to dampen the vibrations.
Please note that I don't think I'll ever play these instruments through amplification, it will be either acoustic or studio/headphone use, so feedback is not a concern.
As we're at it, I saw that the semi-hollow bass from Paul McCartney had no holes. Shall I carve holes in the soundboard of the bass I'm building, how is their presence going to affect the sound coming from the pickups?
