I’m not sure what my fixed neck Tele weighs but it is far lighter than other Teles I own. And the coil tap gives you the choice of single coil pups. I also have an Ibanez Artcore but I never play it. To me it just doesn’t come close to my Fenders.
Fair enough. Personally, I like to have a good range of guitars, because sometimes Fenders can sound too scratchy, and at other times, humbuckers can sound too muddy. With Artcore, it really depends on which one you get. The last AS I played was dark sounding and didn’t much appeal to me, but the AF which I own (and is one of my favourite guitars), has a much more open and complex sound – kind of halfway between a Gibson 335 and a Gretsch.
By the way, I should have said, I was attracted to the Blacktop Jaguar in particular because, unlike the standard Jaguar, it’s a hard-tail. I don’t like whammy bars.
When you buy pickups from a vendor like Duncan or whoever, you can buy a Neck or Bridge version of some pickup. I assume it’s optimized in some way to be awesome in that spot. So what is it optimized for? I know a bridge pickup gets more highs, a neck pickup gets more lows and mids. So I’ve had a Duncan set in a guitar and I get exactly those things, no surprise. But with any pickups I’d get exactly those things because of the position they’re in, if for no other reason. So what did Duncan (or whoever) give me that was extra sauce on top of that? What is the pickup vendor’s optimization for that position giving me? What are they trying to enhance or diminish in their design for that spot on the neck?
And BTW, I got the Mean 90 installed into the neck position of the Dot tonight, and I’m provisionally mighty pleased. The 90 seems really nice and articulate, what I’d expect in a P90, and not much hum. After fiddling a bit I balanced it with the bridge Duncan 59, and the middle combo of both is really really lush, very nice. Buy one of each for your kids, I can’t recommend either enough. Did I say I’m really pleased?
Well, there are pickups that are slightly wider at the bridge than the neck, but most pickups are standard sizes.
Basically the difference is that bridge pickups are designed to be louder. That’s because guitars strings are loudest at the middle of their length and quietest at the ends. They oscillate further in the middle than at the ends, an effect you can actually see if you look at a vibrating guitar string. So the bridge pickup is louder than the neck pickup because it needs to amplify the string more.
Setting the height of a pickup affects the sound; closer to the strings is louder. However, louder isn’t always better and less sometimes really is more. Messing about with pickup height is the easiest and cheapest way to have a real effect on the sound of your guitar. It’s also worth noting that the magnetic field of a pickup has an effect on string vibration - a neck pickup can affect the strings even when you’re using the bridge pickup alone.
That’s why single-pickup guitars, like a Les Paul Junior or an Esquire, sound different to two pickup guitars like an LP Special or a Telecaster. Nothing to do with routes or body wood; it’s the magnetic field of the neck pickup, even when it’s switched off. Keep that in mind when adjusting pickup height; too close can cause unpleasant overtones; lowering a pickup, especially at the neck position, can make a guitar sound significantly nicer.
Yep. What he said.
OK, that makes all kinds of sense. They just wind it a little hotter to compensate. Then you try to help by getting that bridge pickup closer to the strings, and back the neck pickup away and try to strike a balance. Got it.
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OK, so I’ve heard guidelines on this sort of thing – the “nickle rule” that WordMan had mentioned a few pages back, or various other rules of thumb. Is there some objective way to tell if you’re doing it right or wrong? I could see spending a lot of time experimenting and the tone difference would be so subjective you couldn’t tell if you’ve messed up your tone or left good tone on the table. And what does it sound like when you’re doing it wrong? Bassier? Treblier?
It’s just about trying and listening. Use some rule of thumb as a starting point (with your rig dialed in for a great clean tone OR simply your fave set up clean or crunchy) and then use a jeweller’s screwdriver to try positions above and below. Give the screws a good turn or two so you hear contrasts when you A/B.
You can hear when the sound thins out and disappears, and when it gets overdriven or impedes string travel. There is no magic moment, but you can hear the tone bloom a bit; a bit more harmonic sparkle. Try it.
Hmm. I just spent about five minutes on the Dot adjusting that neck P-90 closer/further and… I can sort of tell there’s something different if I raise it almost to touching the strings. A bit deader perhaps, but it’s subtle. Maybe I’m not doing this right – am I supposed to be monitoring the bridge or neck pickup while I test this out? I was monitoring the bridge pup, since the neck one was going to get louder/softer as I adjusted it and I wanted a neutral volume to listen to.
In other news: I just popped open the Schecter to put those new Duncans in, and realized I’d forgotten that the Schecter has one of those 5-way pickup selectors where two of the positions are coil taps from each pickup. And now I’m wondering if I want to do something with that or just blow it off and have the tap positions give the same tone as the neck/bridge selections. I can’t say coil taps are that compelling to me, but it seems retarded to have switch positions that don’t do anything. Complicating matters is the pickups: the Duncan 59 has only two wires, where the Duncan Pearly gates has four wires + ground (obviously two wires for each pickup, but I’m not yet clear which colors are paired to which pickup). I guess I could use 3 selector positions for bridge/half-bridge1/halfbridge2 or something + 2 positions for neck+bridge neck-only. Or just have a retarded switch and be done with it, which is probably what I’ll do, sigh.
Well, hell. I just popped open the Schecter and popped out the stock pickups and… they’re already Duncans. Says so right on the back, and not “Duncan Designed”. I had no idea. A little googling tells me they’re a 59 in the neck and a JB in the bridge. So I guess changing pickups is a bit pointless, pffft. So how come I love the 59 in my Dot, but find it uninspiring in this guitar?
I bought one of these on the weekend. Figuring out how to play Moonlight Sonata on it (in Dm).
Those look fun - it’s a Yamaha Guitarlele (a uke with 6 strings - tuned like a guitar I assume).
**squeegee **- dial in your bridge pickup for your optimal tone, then adjust the neck pickup so it’s loudness is about the same as the bridge. The neck is the one that can get too loud, so adjust it.
As for adjusting the bridge pickup - again, start with it in a reasonable place (e.g., the nickel rule I shared), then try it at extremes relative to that - way up and way down. At least a few screw turns of the pickup height adjuster screws on both sides of the pickup.
If you aren’t hearing much difference, then put it basically in the “rule of thumb” location and stop. Either just be happy, or consider going in with your guitar to the tech you use (or maybe your son’s instructor with the great Les Paul?) and ask if they also perceive little difference as you adjust your pickups - or if you are even doing it correctly. Couldn’t hurt if you would really like to ensure you are approaching it right. Or there may be something about those pickups, that guitar or its electronics that simply translate to little difference…
WordMan, I think you’re misunderstanding me a little. I was trying to intentionally get the neck pickup in a spot that caused it to mess up the tone, just to see if I could tell the difference. At least on my Dot with that P90 in the neck, I didn’t really get a taste of what a “bad” distance would do to the tone. In any case, after this little experiment, I adjusted the pickup much further away, probably a distance of 1/2", and it’s all fine.
Sorry. “Bad” distance, to me, either fades away (too far) or sounds too overloaded or distorted (too close) - I am sure you understand the concepts. The fact that you are dealing with a P-90 in the neck position of a guitar may be why you are hearing little contrast. I have much more experience doing my tweaking with bridge pickups and then just positioning the neck pickup so it matches the bridge in volume. With bridge pickups, I have been able to hear contrast…
Yeah, I get all that, and normally adjust things accordingly. But I was trying to get a feel for what Shakester had said above:
So I was curious about this, and I was messing with intentionally getting the P90 to affect/worsen the tone of the bridge pickup by it’s magnetism interfering with string vibration. I couldn’t tell, but I’m not sure if that means I’m not hearing the magnetic interference, or that I already was and adjusting the neck pickup didn’t make it worse.
Okay.
Honestly, I think the only way you could hear the effect would be to remove the neck pickup entirely. I don’t think you can lower a neck pickup so low that you “bypass” the magnetic pull. I have never heard of folks with Tele’s trying to lower their neck pickup so much that it, in effect, sounds like an Esquire. I would assume that if that worked, it would commonly discussed on line. Same with lowering the neck pickup on a Les Paul Special to make it sound like a Les Paul Junior - I have never heard that simply lowering it works or is commonly attempted to acheive that effect…
I guess didn’t make it clear what I was trying to do, WordMan. Sorry for the confusion.
No worries; hope my follow-up explanation helped. Bottom line is that the bridge pickup does NOT sound “better” or “worse” if you take the neck pickup out of the body - it just can sound different - typically a bit more raw because the strings’ travel is no longer affected by the neck pickup’s magnetic field. But again, you’d have to take the neck pickup out, I think. Seems like a lot of work for a curiosity.
And all of that is different vs. just trying to dial in the best position/height for a pickup…
Yeah, you’re right, it is a lot of work to do, and I’d have no A/B comparison unless I had two exactly identical guitars, one with the bridge pickup missing. So I guess I’m just chasing unicorns. Done.
So speaking of neck pickups: I’m going to go ahead and order that Duncan Donahue pup you recommended for my Tele. Got any neck pickup recommendations that you think would would pair well with it?
All good. Best of luck with the Donahue. I paired mine up with a Duncan Phat Cat - a humbucker-sized P-90-ish pickup (not quite a P-90, I think - it is a big single coil, but I think he was going for a P-90/Jazzmaster hybrid). Sounds great and very good for Keef-like tones, which is what I was looking for. I assume, however, that you are NOT interested in routing out your gorgeous Tele or swapping in a new pickguard. I don’t have a straight Tele neck replacement pickup I have first-hand experience with, but am sure you can find something cool…