know anything about guitar pick-ups?
Home > Home Recording Forum > Gear Gab > know anything about guitar pick-ups?
Posted on Sep 06, 2005 12:12 am
wontdieinPA
Member Since: Apr 27, 2002
i have an Ibanez Artcore (hollow-body/dual humbuckers), which plays like a beauty, feels amazing, sounds amazing unplugged and also looks great, im looking to change my pickups but heres the thing...i have no reason to change both because i only use 1 pickup anyways,...i always have the toggle switch down, and i have it set-up so that when the toggle is in the "up" position the guitar is muted, this is done by turning the volume completely off for that pickup...because when the "top" position guitar pickup is on it sounds like crappy mushy mud...but all my guitars do that...i only ever like using one pickup...
problem being: i dont know which pickup im liking so much, the neck or the bridge? how do i figure that out?
and also, why does one pickup always sound great, and one always sound horrible? all my guitars with humbuckers are like this...the "down" position sounds awesome while the "up" position sounds like i put a blanket over my amp...i dont get it!!
[ Back to Top ]
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Sep 06, 2005 04:02 am The down postion on the toggle is usually the bridge pickup. The neck pickup is the one that generally sounds too bassy & muddy with humbuckers, though you can dial in some great tones with it. The reason is the neck pickup picks up the resonance/sound from near the neck (naturally) which is a fuller, bassier sound just like on an acoustic strummed close to the neck is fuller, bassier. The closer you get to the bridge the brighter the sound will be. Some guitars also use different pickups in the neck position as well which can make a difference.
Dan
Sep 06, 2005 08:23 am Yeah, the bridge pickup is what gives the sound some crispness, the bridge pickup gives it the body, or the fullness. When playing distorted the bridge pickup is what really adds sizzle and lets the sound cut through to rest of the music.
If your guitar has a coil tap you can use only one of the two pickups in a humbucker, which can help minimize the fatness of the sound that sometimes come.
If you replace pickups, there are pickups made for the bridge and neck positions. Q-Tuner www.q-tuner.com, for example, makes pickups to different specs for each position, and it really does make a difference. Their hi-z is for the brdige and lo-z is for the neck, and if you reverse them the difference is, well, readily apparant.
Sep 06, 2005 01:32 pm thanks guys...because, im just gonna replace the bridge pickup instead of both...cause i actually will never use the other one...i wish i could just fill in that hole and have only one pickup
TadpuiI am not a crook's headMember
Since: Mar 14, 2003
Sep 06, 2005 04:31 pm You can always figure out which toggle position correlates to which pickup by tapping on the pickup with your pick while the guitar is plugged in and both volume knobs are turned up. The active pickup will transmit the tapping while the dormant pickup will not (as much).
