page_title: Bass guitar
section_title: Non-magnetic pickups
hierarchical_section_title: Bass guitar / Pickups and amplification / Non-magnetic pickups
caption_attribution_description: English: The red bass guitar to the left is a Jackson C4A, with 2 active humbucker pickups. The natural finish one to the right is a Yamaha BB404F Fretless with fret lines. The amplifier is a Hartke 5000, 2 * 250 Watt in 4 ohms.
context_page_description: The bass guitar, electric bass, or simply bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length, and typically four to six strings or courses. Since the mid-1950s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music.
  The four-string bass is usually tuned the same as the double bass, which corresponds to pitches one octave lower than the four lowest-pitched strings of a guitar. It is played primarily with the fingers or thumb, or by striking with a pick. The electric bass guitar has pickups and must be connected to an amplifier and speaker.
context_section_description: The use of non-magnetic pickups allows bassists to use non-ferrous strings such as nylon, brass, polyurethane and silicone rubber. These materials produce different tones and, in the case of the polyurethane or silicone rubber strings, allow much shorter scale lengths.
  Piezoelectric (or "piezo") pickups (also called "piezo" pickups) use a transducer to convert vibrations in the instrument's body or bridge into an electrical signal. They are typically mounted under the bridge saddle or near the bridge and produce a different tone from magnetic pickups, often similar to that of an acoustic bass. Piezo pickups are often used in acoustic bass guitars to allow for amplification without a microphone.
  Optical pickups use an infrared LED to optically track the movement of the string, which allows them to reproduce low-frequency tones at high volumes without the "hum" or excessive resonance associated with conventional magnetic pickups. Since optical pickups do not pick up high frequencies or percussive sounds well, they are commonly paired with piezoelectric pickups to fill in the missing frequencies.
caption: Bass-stack amp and speaker configuration
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