A couple of pictures of me

Eric, have you any more pics of that bass?

That green looks awesome!

Thanks, Bill! That's my dear old Tokai Jazz that I first got back in 2002. I did a lot of Frankenbass things to it, and it eventually fell apart. But it was a real beauty!

Actually, the bass is (or WAS) a sort of glittery black. That green you see is coming from a spotlight.

That bass went through quite a lot of changes over the years. With the exceptions of my stereo pickups and Kahler, here is the bass pretty "normal":



Here is the same bass with an aluminum pickguard:



And here it is again, Van Halen-striped, with a Mighty Mite MM pickup in the neck position for my low/clean channel:

Awesome! The Van Halen look is sweet too!

How did that MM sound up by the neck?

Interesting how you drift farther and farther way from the bridge with your pickups! I dig that kinda pickup placement. I think closer to the neck is where all the guts come out of your bass

Man...we need more flaming, drooling, and bouncing smilies...like the Behemoth forum Can normal users submit smileys, or is that an administrative right?

Thanks, Guys! Actually, I totally loved the sound of the MM pickup. But since it was spaced for closer to the bridge where the strings are wider, and because I wanted it for my low/clean channel closer to the neck, I had to angle it so the pole pieces would catch the strings.

And the reason why I tend to move further away from the bridge is simple, really. I don't care for the tones from a pickup being too close to the bridge, but instead prefer the tones further up towards the neck.

Depends on the pickup too, IMO.

I love the X2N right by the bridge, but some pickups need to be far away from it, like P pickups.

It just sounds to my ears that when a pickup is right on the bridge, it gets this nasally tone that I don't find useful at all.

The best spot for my distortion tone is the usual P bass pickup location, hands down.

And I do like the sound of a pickup right at the neck for my low/clean channel, but this can also sound really woody at times. But I have recently discovered that I love the tone of a pickup sitting in the midway Music Man position, since that area seems to produce a high-fi tone that is great for a clean signal, and it really catches my ear now. That's why I moved my bridge pickup to that position, and I was completely blown away by the results. I am now thinking that I might do this to all of my basses from now on.

Interesting that you come to that conclusion now, because that's how I've been gravitating since I started trying different basses and pickups--away from the bridge. Love bridge pickups on guitar, but on bass, pickups in the bridge don't seem to have the same presence as ones more towards the area where P pickups are.

Have you ever tried a P pickup in the bridge, Bill? I tried a Mockingbird that had the classic BC Rich P/P configuration and the only one working was the bridge pickup. It was hard to tell what it actually sounded like with all the coil taps/varitones, tone controls, etc, but it sounded very responsive. I'm inclined to want to experiment with this.

I wonder what would happen if DiMarzio made a MM pickup.