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Pickup Advise

Hi all, my first post.

I have built 3-strign and 4 string CBG and I am beyond hooked.

So my question is about pickups. How important is it to use a match string to pole. My first CBG was with an old 6-poll humbuker and it seems work just fine. But now that I have to buy some pickups I have a chance to be more specific.

And an extension to that question is what about the lipstick style. Those don't appear to specify polls.

BTW I have little technical knowledge about pickups, incase that is not already obvious.

And as long as you reading this if you have recommendation of pickups I would appreciate. I want to keep thing as inexpensive as possible but I don't want to buy crap.

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Jordan on April 13, 2017 at 1:48am

If you like cheap and simple, with good tone, buy P-bass pickups, the OEM import style are $9 at the GFS website. Thats 2 pickups for $9 + shipping. Plenty of other good options as well.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on April 13, 2017 at 3:58am

I used the set that CBGitty sells because GFS was out of stock on theirs, probably the same pickups made by Artec. I wired mine as singles to a 4-way Tele switch fo Both pups in parallel or series. Great little pickups.

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Permalink Reply by Phil Gershwiin on April 13, 2017 at 5:45am

WOW..... I really want to thank everyone for all this valuable information. This is a great board.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 14, 2017 at 4:26am

You have no idea...;-)

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Permalink Reply by RTZGUITARS on April 16, 2017 at 10:16pm

Don't forget about the under saddle piezo stealthy cheap if you cant make a slotted bridge buy one they are only a few bucks heck you don't have to even do that you can do like pick said with a piezo rod like this! bottom left

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Permalink Reply by David L. on April 17, 2017 at 3:08am

I haven't found any difference if the strings don't match the poles.

If the visual appearance bothers you you can buy no hole pickup covers off eBay or pickups with only 3 or 4 poles (CB Gitty sells some https://www.cbgitty.com/search.php?search_query=3+pole+pickup)