When selecting bass guitar pickups, there are numerous choices available to you – these include classic P and J style pickups as well as humbuckers.
Humbuckers consist of two double-coil pickups which work to cancel out any unwanted hum via larger polepieces, creating a thick sound suitable for rock and metal music.
Humbuckers were first made popular on rock bass instruments with Fender Precision Bass models dating back to 1957, and remain an essential feature. Slap bassists in particular still use them today.
Phase Cancellation
There are three primary types of bass pickups: single-coil, split-coil and humbucker. Each type offers unique properties that impact tone. Single-coil pickups feature one coil of wire wound around a bobbin with pole pieces beneath the strings – its size, magnetism and winding can drastically change how it sounds; being susceptible to steel string vibrations creates an open and clear sound which may vary depending on its construction type.
Split-coil pickups (sometimes known as open-coils) consist of two single coil pickups connected by wires arranged as one unit and wired in series (with both hots and grounds connected together). Each single-coil covers the string gaps of two strings simultaneously while their magnetic field cancels out any 60-cycle hum that causes buzzing sounds on your guitar, canceling out buzzy noises caused by 60 cycles per second hum. A split-coil can also provide more midrange frequencies in its sound – ideal for blues or rock styles!
A humbucker pickup, on the other hand, consists of two single-coil pickups stacked one upon another. However, their coils are larger and have additional wraps of feedback-dampening copper wire wrapped around them for feedback dampening; this gives them thicker tones with reduced high frequencies, producing a punchier and more powerful sound than regular humbucking pickups that have more balanced tones with ample low frequencies.
Bass guitarists prefer humbuckers for their balanced sound and powerful output when driven hard through a distortion pedal or high-gain amp, which explains why so many different bass styles rely on them, from the rock of Mike Dirnt and Nate Mendel of Foo Fighters, Billy “Bass” Nelson of Parliament and even ramblin’ country lines played by James Jamerson.
EMG’s 35 and 40DC humbucking pickups provide a strong humbucking sound that stands up against heavy distortion, making them the world’s best-selling bass humbuckers and ideal for both rock and metal music. Their offset pole piece magnet design helps ensure they can handle high gain situations without succumbing to heat or power overload.
Power
Pickups transform mechanical string vibrations into electrical signals that can then be amplified and reproduced as sound waves. There are various kinds of pickups on the market; each variety offers unique mechanisms and designs that alter their sound output. While not solely responsible for shaping bass guitar tone, pickups play an essential part in helping you create sounds you desire on stage or in the studio.
Single-coil pickups consist of just one coil wrapped around magnetized polepiece screws, making them highly sensitive to ambient magnetic noise from transformers, neon tubes and radios. As these electromagnetic signals interfere with string vibration and cause buzzing or humming noises from amplifiers, humbucking eliminates this issue by placing two electromagnets close together so they cancel each other out; only then is your clean string signal amplified.
As well as eliminating hum, a good bass guitar humbucking pickup will increase the power and strength of your instrument’s output, helping it stand out among other instruments on stage or studio sets – this effect being particularly prominent if you choose a high-output pickup.
Choose a bass pickup with just the right amount of power is important if you want to shape your tone in certain ways. Some players prefer more powerful pickups that produce fuller and heavier basses tones while others may prefer lesser powered models for producing subtle and natural bass tones.
An additional way of controlling the power of a bass pickup is selecting different magnet types. Each will have an effect on how it sounds; an Alnico 3 magnet produces a more soothing tone while Alnico 2 magnets tend to produce sharper and more aggressive tones.
If you want a customized tone, many bass manufacturers work directly with musicians to develop signature pickups specifically tailored for them and their playing style. This allows them to get exactly the tone they’re after without all of the additional components that go into building an effective bass guitar.
Less Noise
Use of an appropriate pickup will make your bass sound louder, more powerful, and less muddy. Also be mindful of its height because this can impact how much mud builds up underneath it.
If your pickup is too high, its strings will vibrate too often against its magnet and produce an untuned warbling sound. This is easily remedied by lowering its height using the same technique as single coil pickups: simply touch one lead of your meter (polarity doesn’t matter here) to the jack sleeve connection, then the other lead (of whatever polarity) to any solder point within your guitar that serves as grounding point – such as pot backs or the volume pots’ grounded sides – using both leads of your meter leads (polarity doesn’t matter here). If more than 2 or 3 ohms of resistance is read off, then lowering pickup height will likely need adjusting.
Humbucking bass guitar pickups (often referred to as “humbuckers”) consist of two single-coil pickups wired out-of-phase in order to cancel out any 60 Hz hum present in all basses. Humbuckers typically offer fatter, richer tones than single coil pickups and are frequently found on older instruments like Epiphone/Gibson, Hofner or Music Man bass guitars.
Single-coil bass pickups, which most beginning bassists will likely employ, tend to produce brighter tones with more of a twang than their double-coil counterparts, making them suitable for more pop and rock genres, punk rock music, as well as some blues styles.
P-style bass pickups, most often found on Fender Precision Basses, offer the sound signature associated with iconic bass players like Parliament’s Billy “Bass” Nelson or Green Day’s Mike Dirnt/Nate Mendel/Stu Hamm and Jaco Pastorius. You can easily manipulate these pickups to achieve that authentic bass tone you seek.
Some have reported issues with covered humbucking pickups made of epoxy sealant; these stop the pickup from vibrating but may cause howling noise when playing; one possible solution would be placing thick pieces of foam under each pickup and its cover for extra noise control.
Sound
Humbucking bass pickups have quickly become one of the most desirable characteristics. But there are countless variations on a basic theme; factors like coil width and magnet type/layout can have significant effects on sound. Furthermore, each bass pickup type suits certain genres and playing styles better.
The three primary varieties of bass pickups are single-coil, split-coil and humbucking models. Humbucking features two coils side-by-side connected by larger pole pieces to increase power and range at low-end frequencies; artists such as Geddy Lee from Rush, Rage Against the Machine’s Tim Commerford from Rage Against the Machine and Metallica’s Robert Trujillo often prefer them.
Though both single-coil and humbucking pickups will help reduce hum, the latter offers richer and deeper sound due to cancelling noise by way of another magnetic field created by its other coil. Furthermore, humbuckers offer greater power as well as tonal variety than their single coil counterparts.
Single-coil pickups, in contrast, are more sensitive to ambient sounds such as electromagnetic fields generated by electronics like radios, transformers and neon tubes; as such they may produce harsh and shrill tones which detract from your playing style’s musicality.
Other types of bass pickups include piezo models that use pressure rather than magnetic fields to convert string vibrations into an amplifiable signal; and active pickups, with preamp modules designed to filter out noise and strengthen signals before reaching an amplifier – these options make active pickups an excellent option for players seeking maximum amplification for their instrument.