This electrified laptsteel featured a large single-coil pickup composed of two horseshoe magnets.Īround five years later, Paul Tutmarc, another electric instrument pioneer, released the very first horizontally-played electric bass. The team improved upon Beauchamp’s earlier designs to release the first mass-produced electric guitar, the Rickenbacher A-22. His first big success came in 1931 after co-founding the Rickenbacker instrument company with Paul Barth and Adolph Rickenbacher. Beauchamp, an innovative multi-instrumentalist, began designing and testing various pickup designs in the 1920s. Their first successful incarnation is generally credited to Texas-born George Beauchamp. Pickups were the result of a lot of experimentation by various inventors pioneering the field of electrified instruments.
Pickup History and the Rise of the Electric Bass Early Electronics There are, however, some commonalities to be found in each category of pickup-some defining characteristics that make different bass pickup types preferable for certain genres or playing styles. As such, there are no hard and fast rules to be able to say “pickup X sounds just like this, and pickup Y sounds just like that.” Additionally, the tonewoods used in the body, neck, and fingerboard of the bass shape the tone, further influencing the terminal output of the electronics. Different pickup manufacturers utilize various combinations of all these elements to define their signature tones. The sound generated by bass pickups depends on several factors, like the magnets used, the direction and method of wrapping the wire, and where they are placed on the bass. This then travels through your bass’s wiring, down the instrument cable, and is finally converted into sound through your amplifier. When your strings vibrate, they cause a magnetic flux which is transferred as an electrical charge through the wires surrounding the magnets. This creates an electromagnet-the electromagnetic pickup exudes a magnetic field, and in turn, magnetizes the guitar string. Magnetic poles are inserted into holes in the bobbin and then wrapped many times with a conductive wire. Like the pickups used in electric guitars, your typical bass pickups are made of magnets, wire, and a container called a bobbin. Pickup “Bass”icsīasically, a pickup serves as a way to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy.
Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be able to grab the right bass for when you want your basslines to quack with a clear-cut spank, wobble with warmth and resonance, or walk smoothly down the middle path. Today we’re taking a look at the key characteristics of the different bass pickup types to give you a bit of insight into which electronics you’ll want to choose to match your desired tone. You might think a bass is a bass, but there’s quite a sonic distinction between a Thunderbird with dual humbuckers, a Jaguar with a split-coil “P” pickup, and a Rickenbacker fixed with a couple of single-coils. Nowadays, bass manufacturers have given us a slew of body designs and several bass pickup types to choose from. What were once essentially oversized acoustics outfitted with rudimentary electronics have evolved into a versatile array of sleek but thunderous music machines. Bass guitars have come a long way since their inception in the 1930s.
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