Flat Top Pickups?????

[Jeff Lee]

I saw the video of Christopher Rhodes playing a 7 string and from what I hear, KS 7 strings basses come with Flat top pickups. My Questions is there is significant difference in sound between the Smith Flat Top PUPS and the Exposed
Pole Piece PUPS?

[Tim Bishop]

Originally Posted by bluesquidd

I saw the video of Christopher Rhodes playing a 7 string and from what I hear, KS 7 strings basses come with Flat top pickups. My Questions is there is significant difference in sound between the Smith Flat Top PUPS and the Exposed
Pole Piece PUPS?

I have an MD-7 and the P/U's (flat-tops) are great. However, I prefer the P/U's with the "pole pieces" simply because it gives you the option to "fine-tune" each string up and down the neck.

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by bluesquidd

I saw the video of Christopher Rhodes playing a 7 string and from what I hear, KS 7 strings basses come with Flat top pickups. My Questions is there is significant difference in sound between the Smith Flat Top PUPS and the Exposed
Pole Piece PUPS?

The few 7s we made with Polepices exposed were hard to balance on the C and F string. Too much or too little kind of thing. What is not being looked at here is mass! For those of you that have played out 4, 5 and 6 string models you might notice that the wider the neck/model, the thicker the G-string sound. With a 7-string this is even more so. The first two had Bubinga Fingerboards, then we went to Morado for a few and when we could get the same material we had for the other models, went with Ebony for the Fingerboards. This did more to the sound than did the pickup change. With the Ebony and Flattops, the Basses were snappier sounding than Bubinga or Morado with Polepieces. Also, we made only 7-piece necks in the beginning, then switched to 5-piece and now we offer both. Neck mass in anyway will affect the sound of the Bass as well.

One important note is that the pickup coils and internal magnets across are exactly the same on either model. The only difference is that the Poles run thru the coils rather than an extra row of bars under the top of the pickup. With the Poles, yes you can slightly tune the volume but you can also create magnetic feedback if you get them too close. These poles are screws that are magnetized by the bar magnets inside and not magnets in themselves. With the Flattops and with 7 strings, the radius of the String-fingerboard-bridge-pickup top is much closer in harmony being a shallower radius than the other models with less strings.

So for me, I prefer the results with the flattop pickups than the poles. Also, you can freely bend the strings with the FTs and maintain even volume which you can't do as well with the Polled PUs.

[Christopher Rhodes]

I agree with Ken. The flattop pickups does provide an even response across all the strings. I also like the feel of the flatop on my fingers. Sometimes I dig in too hard - but it is not a problem the pickup feels good to the touch. I hope this makes sense.

I do enjoy playing the seven-string. My favorite trick is to play a guitar like chord - while the guitarist is looking the other way - and then switch back to playing the bass :0 -- "Who was just playing that guitar part... it wasn't me"

I really enjoy the wide-spacing (18mm) on the MD 7 string. Very comfortable for me!