Neck vs Bridge Pickup - Which do you use/why?

I mainly use the neck pickup or the middle position with the two blended. I think of the bridge pickup more as a "solo pickup" with enhanced treble.

Neck pup for rounder tones especially in cleaner, sparser music where a thicker tone with more body fills out the sound.

Combo neck plus bridge for rhythm crunch and mild distortion to get a bit more level plus harmonics to make the sound more defined in moderately dense mixes.

Bridge for dirt or where I need level and extra high end definition (them's harmonics!) to cut through, especially live for solos -- but again in a dense mix, as this is where articulation and punching through counts for more than pure tone.

And I've really come to prefer a single coil neck and a really hot single or 'bucker bridge pup for live playing. Gives me the tonal flexibility I like.

I have never liked single coil p-ups. I have a strat copy with them and they are not too good, but then it's a cheaper guitar and I am currently in the process of replacing the p-ups with some hotter dual rails. I did play a JIMMIE VAUGHAN Fender strat a few year ago with the Tex-Mex p-ups that I really enjoyed. What I am currently exploring are P-90's or replacing Humbuckers with a P-90 humbucker sized p-up. My Fender Toronado from 2002 came with H-B's and now has a GFS Dream 90 in the Neck and a Gibson P-94 in the Bridge. These replacements on the Fender are Humbucker sized, but P-90 "sound" (some will debate whether they sound as good). I have my eye on several guitars that have "true" p-90's factory installed. Neil Young was using a Gibson with p-90's when he did some of his best stuff in the late 70's. My, My, Hey, Hey....

With the Strat its the neck pup. With the 51 or Tele I like the Bridge pup.With the Epi dot it a toss up. :D

Nez,

That's a good description of what at least my perception of the sound smothered!

I really need to go back and do a little experimentation with the neck pick up to see if maybe it's something I can tweak

I like using the bridge pickup on my Tele. The neck sounds smothered.

This varies a lot Tele to Tele. Most seem to have usable bridge pups one way or another, even though those bridge pup sounds on various guitars will span a wide range from simply aggressive to twangy to trebly. But the neck pup seems to be either not harsh, but nice and balanced for cleaner playing ... or overly muted and nearly unusable. You may want to consider replacing that neck pup with something that works better for you. Check the guitarfetish.com site.

Personally I think the sound of that little covered single coil neck pickup is THE classic Tele sound. The bridge pickup can scream, though, and makes a really nice contrast. Night and day difference in tone. The old standard Tele is my favorite Fender.

Have you checked the string height over the pickups? That's a pretty critical adjustment.

I use whatever pickup gives me the sound I want, just like I'll use whatever guitar gives me the sound I want.

If your pickups don't sound good to you, try adjusting the height/distance from the strings. "Stratitis" can occur on humbucker equipped guitars too.

What he said.... ^^^ :D

Nez,

That's a good description of what at least my perception of the sound smothered!

I really need to go back and do a little experimentation with the neck pick up to see if maybe it's something I can tweak
If the pickup height is OK and it still sounds bad to you then it's probably because the amp is not set up appropriately, or your style of playing isn't matching the settings. Most likely a combination of both factors. I know what you mean by them sounding a bit muffled or unclear - and that's how I felt initially as well - but over the last few months my playing has improved a fair bit, and so has my knowledge of how to set the guitar and amp up to suit the job I'm doing (rhythm or lead) and the style of playing.

Don't give up on the neck pickups - they can produce excellent results in the right circumstances. I used only the bridge for many months because I couldn't seem to get enough clarity out of a neck pickup. But currently I play nearly always with the neck pickup. I can't honestly tell you what the difference was, except that I got better at playing, better at understanding how to adjust my amp, and better at matching all that subtle stuff with the fingers to what the sound was. Guitar voodoo... :shock: ...

Cheers,

Chris.

Chris_C,

You maybe correct. As I said before I haven't paid much attention to my tone at all and I never used any of the pedals that I have.

But I bought a new Guvnor 2 pedal from Marshall and hooked up to my EQ pedal. I have been jamming with Wes a bit and he's a tone junkie so he helped me tweak my setup last week and had my Fender deluxe screaming with tone.

I still only used the bridge pickup but i will have to go back and try somemore. My gear isn't at my house so I only get to plug in a couple times a week now.

But the one thing that makes me wonder though is the fact that I have three quitars which are all different and they all have that same loss of volume muffled sound when I switch to the neck pickup. Although they could all need adjusting it makes it more unlikely they all happen to be off at the neck. It might have more to do with maybe I just don't like the sound.

Chris_C,

You maybe correct. As I said before I haven't paid much attention to my tone at all and I never used any of the pedals that I have.

But I bought a new Guvnor 2 pedal from Marshall and hooked up to my EQ pedal. I have been jamming with Wes a bit and he's a tone junkie so he helped me tweak my setup last week and had my Fender deluxe screaming with tone.

I still only used the bridge pickup but i will have to go back and try somemore. My gear isn't at my house so I only get to plug in a couple times a week now.

But the one thing that makes me wonder though is the fact that I have three quitars which are all different and they all have that same loss of volume muffled sound when I switch to the neck pickup. Although they could all need adjusting it makes it more unlikely they all happen to be off at the neck. It might have more to do with maybe I just don't like the sound.

Bridge pups are usually hotter (louder). Neck pups are more fundamental heavy (less harmonics in the mix compared to fundamental note), while the bridge pup sample the harmonics at a much higher ratio as compared to the fundamental -- that's why the bridge pup sounds more trebly. You just may prefer treble-heavy, edgier timbres.

What are your three guitars?

gnease,

I have the MIM Strat which is what I use most of the time. I have an Epiphone SG which was my first guitar and I have a Jackson Dinky.

I think though you might be right about my preference for the bridge pups. I do like to and tend to play loud and maybe that's part of it.

I really would like to explore the neck pups more since it feels like I'm only using half of the guitar.

I really would like to explore the neck pups more since it feels like I'm only using half of the guitar.

Hi again Chris,

I'm sure that you'll eventually discover how to get a much better sound out of them than you do now. I wish I could say something more intelligent and technical that would explain how - but the best I can do is to say that I initially felt exactly the same way as you do. When I only had one electric (a Yamaha Pacifica) I sort of assumed that the neck pickups on it must just be inferior, or else designed for some style of music that I just didn't play. But after buying several guitars and seeing the same pattern I did start to wonder if there was a bit more to it than that. And indeed there was.

A few months ago a few thing all started to come together however. As I said above, I spent some time working through the amp settings to try and work out exactly what each knob did, and how to adjust each one to suit the tone and style I was after for each job. And also I made some real steps forward in both my general playing skills and in the understanding of how to play rhythm on electric as opposed to acoustic. One of the outcomes of this was that the characteristics of the neck pickups suddenly made sense, and I was able to get a very large leap in the sound I could get with them. I'm currently playing my Epiphone SG400 every day, using the neck pickup, and loving it. For other styles of playing I still prefer the bridge pickup (as Ric said, particularly lead), and I've often seen people say they use the neck for rhythm and the bridge for lead.

You may turn out to always favour the bridge in the long run, but I'd guess that you'll also find out how to get rid of that "playing through a blanket" feeling that can be the first impression of neck pups. I just wish I could say how, but it seems to be partly in the settings and partly in the fingers, so it's hard to be precise about anyway.... :? But as you can see from the number of posters on this thread who favour the neck pickups, it's there waiting to be found. Good hunting. 8)

Cheers,

Chris

chris_c,

I think your probably right. Like I said I haven't been concerned with my tone much in the past and although I know I'm not a great player right now I think most of my lack of tone comes from me not spending the time to fiddle with my settings.

The reason I think it's more the settings than my fingers is that I've been getting together with some friends weekly and Wes has been coming by. He knows how ugly my tone was we he first came over but last week he helped me tweak my FX chain and amp and man did I have tone I never dreamed of. I didn't though spent much time messing with the neck pup.

We are going to get together again tonight and that is going to be on the agenda to work the neck pups. I can always have Wes play my setup and then I can concentrate on the tone without worrying about whether it's my fingers or not.

I really would like to be able to use all the pickups.

Thanks for the suggestions.