Very cool bass. Very odd choice of pickup. Customer request I'm assuming?
Thank you Tom.
The customer wanted a humbucker.
I tried a Strat dual rail humbucker in single coil format first. This way I could maintain the fifties single coil look. But the string spacing of the guitar pickup was just a bit too wide to take the risk.
To avoid string spacing vs pole piece problems we went on a search for a (black) bass humbucker with blade magnets. Several options came up, such as Nordstrand and JBE R-4000.
Eventually we chose the Seymour Duncan pickup. The sound clips that I heard were very convincing.
Cutting off those ears was never a real threshold. (they look pretty silly to me anyway).
Neither was the fact that I had to make the pickup ring myself.
I hope the new owner will make sound clips soon.