Actually, the pictures with them stacked to make a bright "g" are old. it's only one bass and i have all the pickups, basically, in a line now, as the other pic shows.
I was thinking fender p-bass with the orig. design, but the variance in tone among strings was too different like that. the pickups are designed to be verticle w/ the strings on a bass guitar, in a line on a sliding rack so one can find the "sweet spot" for each string, but the maker (
http://www.linearpickups.com) hasn't yet developed an electric upright bass config. so i was on my own.
i wanted the pickups facing the other way so there would be a wider surface picking up the vibration of the thicker strings moving side to side more.
in the '',,'',, configuration, they're close enough to each other to not have huge tone differences, but i did set it up so the "box" the pickups are in can be removed with three screws and reconfigured.
the pickups are great. he designed them so they snap into a nine-volt battery-style clip that mounts to the bass, so you can unplug pickups and put new ones in, move them around, etc.
one could always put a piezo on it too, but i never cared much for those.
tim