Hi all,
As you may know I have a Harely Benton Bass VI I have been playing around on.
I have tried the laBella flats and the Guyker trem and been reasonably happy.
Recently though I have taken off the trem as I don’t use it a lot and also put on the heavy Stringjoy VI strings.
Part of the inspiration for this was listening to the Cure (Pictures of You) and wanting to play chords on the upper strings.
I am hoping to make this a bit moar betterer, so I have been thinking about lipstick pick ups.
I had thought about replacing all 3 but was worried I would lose the bottom end as I still want to play it as a bass- the middle and neck pickups do this well and I have never been really satisfied with the bridge pickup.
So now I am thinking about an Alnico V Bridge pick up only and to play chords on that, perhaps using the strangle switch I installed.
I am interested in any thoughts and experience you all may have with these pickups.
Nothing substantially to add to the discussion cause no experience with that.
But I like that bass and the idea, so I just say the first thing that comes to mind: why not enlarge the cavity and put a proped chrome-colour Humbucker on that bass?
This is so on brand for you 
Lipstick pickups would work just fine if you can fine the right size. It’s a bar magnet so no alignment needed. If you like a vintage quality pickup check out Chris Novak Bass VI
No advice here, but as a Bass VI owner and fan, lemme know how it goes!
I’d love to replace all the pickups and install a 3 way switch ala the strat.
But that project lives in a different timeline.
I vastly prefer humbuckers over single coil and there is still no way I would do this to a Bass VI
Look. If you want a nice bass with humbuckers, it’s best to just buy a nice bass with humbuckers, of which there are many, many examples.
Good morning all,
I won’t go humbuckers, I have a shortscale with humbuckers already.
Last night I put the labella flats back on and kept the hard tail, this is what I should have done originally as it seems the trem system takes a lot of the ‘quality’ out of the tone, perhaps the spring and hinge soak up some of the sound (who knows, I am making this up).
Anyway, it sounds a lot better with flats and the hard tail.
The bridge pickup sounds better but I am still toying with a lipstick (it takes Strat sized pickups) but I really have no idea how they sound.
I read they are brittle, but can have bass and can growl. NFI.
If anyone has one even a Dano I am interested to hear.
good call 
Why 3-ways when you can have 10?
I installed this on my strat a while back and love it.
A couple ways to wire it, but lots of tonal variety either way.
Mine has a 5 way switch already, I also wired in a strangle switch (hi-pass filter).
I like the switch in the Squiers, this lets you turn on an off each pup so you can get some additional combinations.
Best one for me at present is neck and middle either separate or together.
I don’t use the bridge a lot even with the strangle on, for some reason it gets a better sound with the neck and bridge even playing partial chords.
That is why I am thinking about a lipstick.
The trouble is that online research is contradictory, and I haven’t heard good sound samples yet.
I think lipstick pickups soud awesome. I was listening to a video doing a blind comparison of different basses and picked the Danelectro over all the others.
Look for Danelectro videos for sound samples.
I have read about people replacing Danelectro stock pickups with Seymour Duncan lipstick pickups and saying they sound even better. YMMV, I haven’t heard a comparison to know.
Does anybody know what is different in a lipstick pickup design that makes them sound so good?
Check out some sound clips of the old Fender Rascal bass it might give an idea, it has 3 lipstick pickups but is only a 4 string
Even has a bass VI body
That is really cool…and now I want one.
The Bridge sound is pretty much what I am looking for.
I have ordered a single bridge pickup from ebay (Not SD!) and I’ll give that a crack.
I will consider the other two but I like them as strat single coils atm.
I don’t like taking the pickguard off this one too much as the bridge need to be disassembled and the strings unwound and they are flats which are a little bit too long so I need to be careful.
I love lipstick pickups (and Dano’s!) There is a company called called Guitar Fetish anhd they sell lipstick tubes pickups in both Dano and strat sizes. Even better, Their pickups come in different ratings. In this strat set, the neck pickup is 4.9k (vintage Danelectro), the middle is 6.0k and the bridge pickup is 8k.
I have used these pickups several times, I would put them up against any other manufacturer.
https://www.guitarfetish.com/Pro-Tube-Lipstick-Pickups-Chrome--Kwikplug™-Ready_p_21994.html
They are even a reasonable price,
I’ll look at the site in detail later.
If I like the cheapy pick up I will be considering changing out the set.
Are GFS pickups the same as Artec ones?
Honestly I’m not sure. I haven’t tried an Artec ones.
Currently it has in the stock “custom wound” Harley Benton strat style pickups ('vintage wound AlNiCo V).
Now these are generally pretty good, I have had to take out the springs and wind them as high as possible to get this though and I would like the neck to be a bit louder.
Here is where the mind starts to wander.
I have been thinking about lipstick pickups.
Never experimented with them, but this may change on the weekend as I have one to play with now.
What I am wondering is how they would sound but specifically if there is a benefit to wiring them in series? I imaging this would make one big loud pickup and essentially negate the selector switch?
Has anyone done this? is it a good idea?
I imagine I could add another selector on/off for series/parallel but am not sure how to do it-or even if I would bother if an Uber pickup is better.
I am also thinking about some Wilkinson strat pickups but while this may be a better idea, it is less interesting.
This is how Doomsday weapons are invented right?
Why did you do that?
Because I could…
Maybe you’ll find a fitting wiring diagram here?