Question about Top Wood and Pickups

[HG1180]

So I have no clue where to put this, if its in the wrong forum, mods, please feel free to move it.

Anyway!

I recently saw a picture of a bass with a finger ramp covering the entirety of the pickups. It was about a 1/4 of an inch thick, this got me thinking, could you feasibly hide the pickups under a solid top? Would the volume still be there? What about the tone? Has anyone tried this?

 

[Matt Liebenau]

I have a guitar with the pickup under a very thin (1/16” maybe) top and it works fine. I used a high output pickup with what I felt were strong magnets. I can’t say if it changed the tone or not because I never had it any other way. I did put a shim at the side of the neck pocket away from the body and lowered the bridge as much as I could and still play comfortably to try and get the strings as close to the pickups as possible.

If you go to the Luthiers Corner and look at some of the build threads there a number of those guys make wood covers for the pickups. They don’t typically get flush mounted, however.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Try it with the pickup on an existing instrument, tape some cardboard over them & see how you like it.
I fancy putting the pickups as close as physically possible to the strings w/o that clackity-clack of the string bouncing off the pole pieces, & for me that would not mix well with any kind of covering, even a blacked out pickup like Bartolini.