What type of pickups for fretless bass?

[Rowley Birkin QC]

Hope this is the right forum for this question,

I'm putting together a "bitsa" fretless bass using a precision body & wondered if anyone could offer any advice on the best sort of pickups to use for that iconic" fretless mwah" sound.........or am I over thinking it?

[iiipopes]

Well, of course, everybody's first impression of fretless tone is Jaco Pastorius. '60's Jazz Bass pickups. But also remember that he epoxied his fingerboard to make it harder than rosewood, more like a double bass ebony fingerboard. So it's not just pickups.

That said, the standard is still a good pair of Jazz Bass pickups.

Personal take: I can't stand hum or noise of any kind. So instead of vintage Fender or Fender-style single coil pickups, I would check into something like a Bartolini, Lindy Fralin, or Aguilar end-to-end humbuckers that are not overwound so that the mids are tamed to keep the tone from getting too thick and losing the mwah, while still getting rid of the noise.

[bremen]

Can I be the first to say 'it's in the fingers'?

I had a Precision that sounded dead as a dead thing in my hands. Thump. It went. I sold it on to someone who made it 'mwah' the minute he picked it up.

Since then I made a fretless P with an ebony Warmoth neck, EMG pickup and piezo bridge and it really goes 'mwah', but only since I learned how to do that vibrato thing.

[Junkyard Rocket]

My fretless precision has a kent armstrong Precision pickup, ebony fingerboard, TI JF344 flats, almost no relief in the neck and an ultra-low action. It has tons of lovely resonant mwahh even when played unplugged. I think the tone of my bass is more due to the setup & the ebony board than the pickup.

[Rowley Birkin QC]

Appreciate the input from you all. I can get the mwah from technique, but as I was going to put one together, I guess my question was really if there were pickups that were particularly suited to a fretless bass.

[3below]

If you can get 'mwahh' from bass unplugged imo you are 95% on the way. I have an EKO acoustic bass circa 1981, it has mwahh, plays itself almost. It has a £6 japanese 1980s jazz pu that I popped in soundhole. Great bass, massive neck, laquer so thick it is like toffee. It has 'mwahh'. Stick a pickup in it - wilkinson? see what happens as a starting point.

[bremen]

[quote name='3below' timestamp='1366580172' post='2054522']
If you can get 'mwahh' from bass unplugged imo you are 95% on the way. I have an EKO acoustic bass circa 1981, it has mwahh, plays itself almost. It has a £6 japanese 1980s jazz pu that I popped in soundhole. Great bass, massive neck, laquer so thick it is like toffee. It has 'mwahh'. Stick a pickup in it - wilkinson? see what happens as a starting point.
[/quote]

Makes sense.

I have a Wilkinson P pickup doing nothing. If my learned friend would care to PM me you can try it out.

Edited April 22, 2013 by bremen