por que no los dos ? <| sep |> It ' s just an aesthetics thing . Back in the day when pickups were a lot more sensitive to signal interference and noise , the covers would act as a shield . These days though since pickups have much better internal shielding they don ' t have a functional purpose . Me , I like how they look and I use them as a guide for my hand when I ' m slapping . Also , yes , they do keep me from getting the tone you get when you pluck right on top of the pickup . But that doesn ' t really bother me . Incidentally it does seem to bother everyone else who plays my instruments . Add that with the fact that I keep my string tension really high and nobody ever wants to use my basses . That doesn ' t bother me either . D