guitar pickups

[for]

hi i was always lost with guitar pickups

i was just listening to a bass guitar explanation and it had a bridge pickup and a neck pickup....

he said the bridge pickup is for mids...and neck pickup is for lows

is that the case for guitars as well?

also what are the pickups in between those 2 for? thanks

[zeekat]

It's pretty easy to check if you have a guitar nearby in general.

Yeah bridge position pickup has more hamonics, sounds brighter and all that, so people playing chugga chugga distorted riffs and leads like it more. Neck one sounds nicer and softer and is good for cleans stuff. Middle pickup is between them and just kinda sits there, not a fan.

Altough there's no rules, remember a local heavy band that claimed to play on neck pickups because strings there have bigger amplitude, wiggle more and apparently are generally louder. Seemed to work for them, altough I imagine it made doing all the metal squeals and stuff harder.

Easy in case of guitar - bass pickups confuzzle the fuck out of me, I have two and an active eq and keep everything always dead in the middle.

edit: I forgot to mention neck pickup is useful if you want to go full Santana

[Fex]

Originally Posted by for

i was just listening to a bass guitar explanation and it had a bridge pickup and a neck pickup....

he said the bridge pickup is for mids...and neck pickup is for lows

is that the case for guitars as well?

The same principle applies, though the range is higher, obviously.... bass rarely ventures beyond mids.

Bridge pickups sound brighter. Similarly, strumming nearer the bridge on an acoustic guitar sounds brighter. Neck pickups have more bass response. It's not at all unusual for heavy guitarists to chug there. Middle pickups are a balance between the two, of course.

It is worth noting that for three pickups, a guitar will often have five switch posistions. The original Stratocasters had just three positions, and people found ways to balance the switch between them for more variety, so Fender started making five position switches for them.