Tele Bass Pickup Advice

[jimmacbass]

Hi guys, I'm going to start a Tele bass project in the Summer and have made a (crude) mockup, without any pickups but I'm not sure what to do in terms of pickups - I want the bass to have a vintage sorta feel, but also with a decent amount of punch - any thoughts on placement and style of pickup?

[winny pooh]

Originally Posted by jimmacbass

Hi guys, I'm going to start a Tele bass project in the Summer and have made a (crude) mockup, without any pickups but I'm not sure what to do in terms of pickups - I want the bass to have a vintage sorta feel, but also with a decent amount of punch - any thoughts on placement and style of pickup?

I have the SD hot pup, it it a bigger improvement over stock pups than you could even guess. Otherwise you can consider a guitar gfs rail pup (lil puncher vintage) as players here have had good results with them on some homebrew tele basses. You could also check out what Lindy Fralin is doing, he may even be doing a him cancelling pup by now for tele bass.

[losergeek]

I just came across a custom loaded tele bass body at my local shop yesterday so I swapped a delay pedal that I wasn't using for it. This might not be too helpful but mine is already loaded with two jazz pickups in the standard j-bass locations (ie. bridge and middle rather than neck). I'm planning on leaving the bridge jazz pickup and then using a pickgaurd to hide the middle cavity. I'm then going to route a neck cavity and get gibson style EB humbucker for the neck, so it will be more like a 72 Custom tele style bass then a standard tele.

[Rod Parsons]

I vote for a vintage style P-bass pickup. It is "THE SOUND" and "NO HUM"...

[losergeek]

I'm also planning on getting a chrome p-bass bridge cover to give it a bit of the classic tele ashtray cover look.

[losergeek]

Your mockup inspired me (and I was bored at work) so here's my rough take on what I'm planning

[jimmacbass]

Thanks for the suggestions guys - definitely some food for thought :)
losergeek - I thought about using the EB neck pickup too but I wasn't sure if it was a little big compared to the 72 custom tele pickup :/ (The ones pictured are taken from the tele custom, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to get hold of them compared to others, e.g. the SD scpbs)

EDIT:
I'm going to go for a more yellowy, bronco neck than the one pictured

[jimmacbass]

winny pooh (and anyone else) - is it ok using a guitar pickup on a bass? Is there no loss in the lower frequencies (or other problems)?

[Gunny]

Fender proved that you can use a 6 string guitar pup in a bass (Musicmaster) but it's not the way to go because the pole pieces don't align with all 4 bass strings.
Check this site for threads by Rotor, Tim Armstrong and Rhomco. They have built basses like your idea and have used both single coil and P type pups. I did one as well using a single coil bass pup from the UK. I've owned Gibson EB basses and once owned a Fender Telecaster bass with one of those large humbuckers at the neck position. Not much top end to those so I'd recommend either the P pups or a single coil of your choice.
There's also an active thread on the forum called Broncocaster Short Scale Project.

[jimmacbass]

Thanks Gunny! :) If I used a large humbucker such as this where the bridge cutaway is on the tele scratch plate (i.e. closer towards the middle than the Tele bass or Gibson EB), any idea if that would sound better?

[Gunny]

Jimmacbass: I could only speculate. In theory, the closer to the bridge - the more treble the sound. You could ask people at this forum who own the Tele style bass with two of those humbuckers. I think it's a Squier vintage modern ?? but I'm not positive.
As for the pup position you speak of, that's where my single coil pickup is located. It's got enough treble to work for me. I don't use much treble unless I find the tone isn't cutting through enough. Still, I can't speak to a humbucker on the Tele (guitar) body 'cos I don't have that pup.

[jimmacbass]

Fair enough, thanks v much :)

[losergeek]

Originally Posted by jimmacbass

losergeek - I thought about using the EB neck pickup too but I wasn't sure if it was a little big compared to the 72 custom tele pickup

Ya, actually I just used the EB reference for clarity - I'm hoping that I can actually pick up one of the wide range HBs they use in the squire modified vintage or I will just be getting a basic chrome HB or maybe even a mini HB - I mainly use the bridge pickup right now anyway, so it's going to be more for appearance then anything else right now.....I might look at getting something nicer down the road but I have to keep the costs down on this to start.

[Tommy Biggs]

I'm happier with an SD Antiquity II P-bass Pickup in my old Tele bass than I was with the old HB. It has a lot of punch, even if it looks a little funny.

[jimmacbass]

Looks good, Tommy_Biggs!

[Rod Parsons]

Great choice... It looks really good to me..... Not "kinda' funny." Cool Bass... I wish I had one like that. I bet it sounds fantastic, too...

[Tommy Biggs]

thanks fellas - It definitely has bottom end. I see I oughta clean my fingerboard - any recommendations for cleaning a maple board?

[Tim Armstrong]

Sorry I'm late to this thread!

I've gotten very good results putting the pickup in the Tele bridge position hole (of course, I had to rout the hole to the proper size). The two basses I've built (Hoss and Little Joe) have different pickups: Hoss had a GFS Music Man copy, an alnico humbucker that sounds fabulous. Little Joe (the bass I gig now) has a really nice Peter Florance Voodoo P-Bass pickup, which also sounds great.



Yeah, I know, that pickup looks crooked! I fixed it...



Tim

[jimmacbass]

Nice!

[jimmacbass]

Tim - do you have any closer-up photos of the cream tele? Also (I know this isn't the correct thread - sorry) but do any of you guys know of people who have made regular scale tele basses? I'm having a bit of trouble getting hold of a short scale neck in the UK!