This is in reference to my nutty idea of putting a Fender J-type neck on an ES style guitar. I am thinking about pickup placement...and reconciling myself to the fact that I will probably have to do some routing...
I have a 75 Fender P bass. the bass side pole pieces are 11.125" from the 12th Fret. I have two basses (a p and a franken jazz) that both have a p-style pickup in this place. There are other bass sounds I like, but this is the one I most consistently gravitate toward. I noticed that the neck-side pole pieces on the neck pickup of my G&L ASAT are in the exact same location. So is the neck pickup on a Jazz.
The ES4-B that I got from PB is different... The center of the rout is 9.125" and 13.25". Interestingly enough, the center point between those two routs is almost exactly where the bass-side pole pieces would be on a p-bass. The both-on position sounds best on this bass (maybe because both pups are in series then, and that often sounds best on danos...).
I just figured out that the bridge holes on my Fender/ES hybrid will need to move a bit, which brings me yet another step closer to making the top a solid color. If I do that, I may fill the pup routs, and make one or two news ones. At least this has crossed my mind...
So what is the ideal placement of pickups? And what pickups should I be thinking about?
I had been thinking about t-bird pickups. I played three T-birds (cheap Epiphone, expensive Epiphone and cheap Gibson). I was startled at how different they sounded--and not too impressed. Range was from muddier to honkiner than my taste tends to run...
So what should I be looking at? Part of me thinks I might be better off to put a nice P-bass pup in the middle and be done with it...