Hidden Pickup Bass

[Jimothey]

Hi everyone 

 

I made a 5 string acoustic bass that I use for gigging but the volume drop on the low B is terrible I've tried packing up the piezo and making sure the saddle is perfectly seated but it seems where the piezo is bent to come through the body I just can't seem to get it right so I'm thinking of doing a hidden pickup acoustic/electric bass instead, my idea is to either put a high output (13-16k) Soapbar or MM pickup under a 2mm cover that's flush with the acoustic body as I want to keep the aesthetic of the clean acoustic look and also use a electric bass bridge on so I can get the strings a lot lower, depending on whether I will need a boost I might wire it into a fishman isys preamp but am a bit concerned that with the high output pickups that it might be too much and possibly clip? From my initial measurements the strings will be 8-10mm off the top of the body is that going to be ok or would they need to be lower?

 

If anyone has made a hidden pickup guitar and can give me any advice would be great?.....👍🏻

[SpondonBassed]

2 hours ago, Jimothey said:

If anyone has made a hidden pickup guitar and can give me any advice would be great?

 

 

@TheGreek's Psilos as built by @Andyjr1515 springs to mind.

 

  

On 13/07/2017 at 10:39, Andyjr1515 said:

There are actually very few jobs to finish off. So, will it be finished very soon? Well, not necessarily! The remaining ones are going to take considerable care and lots of fiddling about. Not least the pickups.

Here are customstocker's (aka Martin Herrick - have a look at the great stuff on his website [url="https://www.herrickpickups.com/"]https://www.herrickpickups.com/[/url] ) custom coils:

 

They are wound individually with different resistances to balance the output of each of the strings. The pole pieces have been put in so that they can be adjusted from the back.

And, by golly, this is a delicate, wibbly-wobbly, highly magnetic assembly! "Be careful with the blue wires - they are very delicate", Martin wisely advised...

So probably Martin has to look away at this point - because the first thing I needed to do was get the soldering iron out http://basschat.co.uk/public/style_emoticons/%3C#EMO_DIR%23%3E/ohmy.png ...and desolder the one stable thing on the assembly - the stiff copper earth wire running across the four coils.

Why? Well, these coils have to go down into separate chambers so what I will do is solder 4 individual earth wires from the shields to hook up with the collective earth on the output cable.

Having removed the copper wire (but not yet added the individual earths) I did a very careful trial fit:
 

Looks good for a first go. I marked the position of the cable runs to rout some slots for them to slot into and the join up to the pre-routed cable channel that's sitting under that ebony strip:
 

Next job is to get the router out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Thursday at 00:39 by SpondonBassed

[RonC]

My Fretless Safran has a hidden PU underneath the end of the fretboard. The pole pieced go through the fretboard so you can adjust them.

 

There's also a piezo under the bridge saddle, mixed with a John East MPM preamp, this combination is great!

Edited Thursday at 07:02 by RonC

[BassTool]

Pm'd Jimothey 😉

[Andyjr1515]

There's a bit of a challenge involved, @Jimothey

 

Generally (although @RonC 's intriguing Safran breaks the rule ), the pickups are in the body area and the fretboard...and the strings...sit higher.  As such, the distance from the strings to the coils (which is where most of the ooomph of a pickup happens - the poles themselves have a fairly modest impact) can be excessive and affect significantly the strength of the signal. 

 

On @TheGreek 's Psilos Bass that @SpondonBassed refers to, I also was able to break that general rule by making the top of the bass part the fretboard...

 

[Hellzero]

@Andyjr1515, my 2013 Leduc U-Contrebasse 6 EUB has EMG pickups at the end of the fingerboard and adjustable via a locking screw.

 

A bit like @RonC Safran bass (I owned one, but sold it as I'm Leduc aficionado and endorser).

 

 

[Jimothey]

On 18/04/2025 at 14:42, Andyjr1515 said:

There's a bit of a challenge involved, @Jimothey

 

Generally (although @RonC 's intriguing Safran breaks the rule ), the pickups are in the body area and the fretboard...and the strings...sit higher.  As such, the distance from the strings to the coils (which is where most of the ooomph of a pickup happens - the poles themselves have a fairly modest impact) can be excessive and affect significantly the strength of the signal. 

 

On @TheGreek 's Psilos Bass that @SpondonBassed refers to, I also was able to break that general rule by making the top of the bass part the fretboard...

 

I've been having a bit of a play with my other MM pickup'd bass and I set the pickup as low as it would go which was approx 12-15mm from the strings and there was a hell of a volume drop but when I plugged it into my Di box which has boosted EQ and Compressor I managed to bring the volume back up to a useable level,

 

If my plans work then the strings will be approx 8-10mm off the top of the body so fingers crossed it will work? 

 

Here's a mockup of what I've got in mind

 

 

[kodiakblair]

I cheated 😃

 

Dropped a fairly high output Warman JazzBar in place.

 

 

 

Then cut a PG to hide it.

 

[Jimothey]

2 hours ago, kodiakblair said:

I cheated 😃

 

Dropped a fairly high output Warman JazzBar in place.

 

 

 

Then cut a PG to hide it.

 

How did yours sound?

 

The pickup I'm putting in is about 14k so hopefully it will be high enough output.........👍🏻

[kodiakblair]

8 hours ago, Jimothey said:

How did yours sound?

Fine and dandy.

 

Shortly afterwards I picked up a Chi-Sonic along with a Modern Player PG

 

 

Later still I nabbed a Fender WRHB.

 

Think I should return it to the Variax look 😎