Humbuckers for bass . . .

bobcat · Post by **bobcat** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 7:00 pm

I'm posting this in the "Others" section because it has nothing to do with Rickenbackers.

I've got a bit of a dilemma. I have a 1978 custom bass guitar (the brand is "Odyssey", it was made by a Canadian guy whose name I forget, who died in a car crash in the late '80s . . . he worked with Alembic for a bit, I believe) that I purchased off of eBay for approximately $300, including the original brass nut and bridge assembly, but sans the tuners, pickup rings, and pickups.

I just recently got a set of gold Grover Titan tuners and put them on the bass, and now I am looking to get the pickups (and the rings to go with them). The original pickups, which I did not manage to win on eBay (I have NO IDEA why this guy parted out the bass . . . he would've gotten a lot more for the intact bass than for the individual parts), were Bartolini Hi-A bass humbuckers. They're pretty much the exact same size as Bartolini's guitar humbuckers these days, only they were made for bass.

Does anyone know of bass pickups that have covered guitar humbucker dimensions, preferably black, and with those little side tabs allowing them to be attached to pickup rings? I found two: Schaller Bassbuckers, and Rio Grand Pitbulls. However, I have no idea where to get the Schallers, and they won't respond to my customer service inquiries. Also, Bartolini's website doesn't have an email I can reach them at, so I can't ask for a quote on custom pickups from them. I know nothing about the Rio Grande pickups. I can't find information ANYWHERE on humbucker-sized bass pickups; people always just respond with "Wait until you see some on eBay!" Unfortunately, I cannot and am not willing to do that.

Can anyone help me out?

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 7:30 pm

Wait till you...

Oh, sorry...

ken_j · Post by **ken_j** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 9:07 pm

These guys are a Bart dealer maybe they can help. http://www.guitarelectronics.com/
Elderly sells Rio Grande. They also show a PRS HB as you describe for bass but the pic looks like a guitar pickup with six poles. Might be worth a call. Stew Mac used to sell Schallers but they are no longer in their catalog.

bobcat · Post by **bobcat** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 10:33 am

Does anyone know how the Rio Grande Pitbulls sound? What I could find said that the Schallers sounded awesome; I didn't find any reviews of the Rio Grande pickups. Also, Elderly.com doesn't sell the Rio Grande bass pickups; just vintage strat replacements and such. I wonder why they show a guitar humbucker for the PRS bass pickup . . . bass pickups either have one or two poles for each string, which would end up being 4 or 8, not 6. Hmmmmm . . .

ken_j · Post by **ken_j** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 1:09 pm

The picture may not represent the product. That is why I would call. Ask for "Frog" he is the pickup guru. Heritage Guitars uses Schallers on some of their models but they don't build any basses that I know of. They are located in Kalamazoo, MI. Maybe they can help.

ken_j · Post by **ken_j** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 6:32 am

Bob, Another alternative is to use some guitar pickups that have rails instead of screw polepieces. A friend did that with some Lawerence pickups on a bass and was quite happy.

Another thing that may be worth a try is to contact All Parts they are a Schaller dealer and may be able to get those pickups even if they do not list them in their catalog.

icabod · Post by **icabod** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 7:46 am

Bob; me thinks those Odyssey basses were made in Vancouver, and if I remember right they felt and sounded good, why can't you put bartolini's back in?