Why Are Bridge Pickups Hotter Than Neck Pickups?
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- Опубликовано: 27 июл 2024
- We all know bridge pickups are hotter than neck pickups. But, why? This video will solve the mystery.
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Interesting question...My significant other was asking me the same question after she watched a guitar auction and saw one, two and three pickup guitars and noted their arrangements. Thank you for your honest and forthright discussion and your use of the word subjective. Personally, I get very tired and disgusted with people on youtube claiming to hear this or that from a bridge pickup when, as a retired electronic tech, the facts are most people can't hear the majority of the frequencies most pickups detect, but are hearing or feeling the effects of overtones more than anything. :)
the way you start your videos is Hollywood pro level.
I just ordered a set of pickups that Jimmy Page had installed before the 1973 American tour , the man got the wiring from Jimmy’s guitar tech . And they have a hotter neck pickup about 8to 7 for the bridge . Also one is turned around for a phase . They sound awesome if your familiar with the song remains the same it spot on . It on RUclips Bryan Willams 73 Zeppelin tour . Great video good info .
Good info. Don't forget about those little knobs on the guitar which can change the tone more than a pickup swap!
If only we had three hands.
Way more amplitude in the neck because of the wider vibration of the strings nearer the midpoint. The bridge is often hotter to compensate, and warm up the sound. Not always, though. Sometimes, especially on older guitars, they are actually pretty much the same and the height adjustment on the neck pickup is backed off a bit.
It was that way on vintage guitars until players complained.
oooh interesting
(about the height adjustment)
Thanks for this very important tip! (Basically u can add volume without adding resistance and sucking highs) (although u also mute the string more with the magnetic field, but that's it's own thing, so basically kinda like changing the strength of the magnet?)
@@HighlineGuitars complaining about what?
All three of the pick ups in my strat rebuild/mod are quad rail humbuckers averaging 18.5 K . the hottest is nearly 19 k so it gets the bridge spot . also each gets vol. and tome pots as well as coil splitting all around. I added a bypass switch to activate both bridge and neck regardless of 5 way switch position. adding piezos on the trem block on the opp side of the bypass switch for more interesting tones available. It started life as a cheap Chinese built Starcaster Strat. But I'm giving it severe upgrades and a new finish to match its new name ....Stellarcaster in line with Fenders naming progression from Broadcaster to Telecaster and then the Stratocaster...and this (used to be) Starcaster Strat by Fender..but with my twist on it...the finish is cloth covered in nebula/star field print body and head stock edged of both in silver micro glitter and well and thickly clear coated with 2K clear buffed to glassy shine. also led indicators for each pick up, separate yet in parallel with the pick up circuit. took a while to figure out the wiring but it works as designed... I have to redo the body messed up the first attempt..perfect second time around. this is my very first guitar build/mod project. and yes the control cavity was routed bigger to accommodate the extra pots and switches and I had to custom make a pick guard as well as repositioning 'everything' to fit and work well.. pick guard is also cloth covered to match the pattern on the body to nearly disappear ...and I mounted the output jack in the pick guard as well, making wiring a cit easier and it had to be moved anyway...so why not? waiting on parts .. yes I went 'Whole Hog' in the very first build/mod but I learned more this way and the next gets the Tele bridge pick up I got from Dylan of Dylan talks tone..so thin line Tele is next in line for me and the body I make myself so wish me luck.
One correction: Bridge and Neck has same vibration frequency, but different Amplitude. If not we would hear a different notes in neck and bridge position on the same string. Neck position has more amplitude and disturb magnetic field more. As result output (current force, mA) from neck pickup is more.
That's way bridge has more wire turns, to compensate that difference in output current, so from the speakers we could hear same loudness.
Frequency produce voltage, base-mid-trem in sound.
Amplitude produce current force, loudness in sound.
More resistance in coil produce more current to go through, with losses of frequency (voltage), those higher vibrations, tremble in sound.
Both you and the video poster are half right. Here is what is happening:
At each point along the string length, you have the "same vibration frequencies" (you are right). However, the low ones (say the primary frequency mode) vibrate with a greater amplitude near the neck, and with a smaller amplitude near the bridge. Conversely, higher vibration frequencies (say, the 11th harmonic (for music nerds, this has nothing to do with 11th notes or harmonics, it has to do with the mechanical engineering sense of the word)) have similar amplitudes near the bridge and neck (so they're equally easy to "pick up" by the pickups), and those amplitudes are always smaller the higher up in frequency/harmonic you go. High frequencies with small amplitudes also "reach" their max amplitude nearer the bridge (and nut) than lower frequencies.
In short, low frequencies are picked up easier by the neck, cause in the neck their relative amplitude is higher. High frequencies, easier by the bridge, relative amplitude higher.
That's why, everything else (in the coil) being equal, the bridge sounds brighter, and we need to correct for that with either a different coil or by playing with the tone/volume knobs
Yes, bridge pickup sound is brighter, because of described by you reasons. But not louder....
That is the point.
More wire on the bridge pickup coil shift resonance frequency of coil in less bright sounding, but with adding more loudness to it.
With correctly increased wire turns on bridge pickup relatively to neck - we get same loudness after switching from one to another.
But of course not same brightness.
You described why. And that is obvious.
Brightness and loudness are not the same thing.
@@dimitrisdimitriadis4913 And I guess I just forgot to mention about shifting of tone from too bright to less bright - by just adding one capacitor to coil circuit.
I thought that is obvious, but forgot that is not, at least for everyone.
If there was a real reason exactly in reducing of brightness of bridge pickup - just one capacitor is enough.
But capacitor cannot increase loudness. Only reduce brightness.
That is the main point.
Of additional coil wiring of bridge pickup.
To get same loudness level as neck pickup.
And as a side effect, yes, we get more capacitance, inductance, shifting resonance peak of coil down, and less brightness, as result.
But that was not the main reason.
Main reason in loudness level.
Exactly my sentiment about flip flop bridge to neck and the lower output at the bridge. Sounds like what I was hoping tI try soon. Glad to hear a pro luthier like you say it might be all you need to do.Tone is personal preference.😂
so well explained, thank you so much
One option is to try different magnet types and strength. Like going from an alnico 5 to an 8 or a ceramic. Or go the other way. All without changing DC resistance. Mind you, this can only be done on a p90 or humbucker.
I wonder if you could speak about the sonic differences of pickup height adjustment, outside of loudness. New subscriber, great channel.
always very usefull information, love the channel
Much appreciated!
I find it so uncanny that Chris would put out this video, as I’ve recently been looking into why there’s a difference in pick out output. Primarily because one of the most sought after tones in the history of guitar players is EVH. Even when he released his own line of guitars 30+ years ago, people were still chasing his sound.
Here’s what I found… His current “Frankenstein” pickup (which you can purchase anywhere) puts out an oddly low 14.4K. Not low by many standards, but you’d expect more from Eddie. Then when you look at his Wolfgang Pickups, the bridge pickup is very similar to the Frankenstein at about 14.4K. However, the mind boggling aspect of this is when you look at the output of the Wolfgang neck pickup… It comes in at a very hot 17k. So when you buy a Wolfgang guitar, you’re getting what Chris describes here when he talks about the potential of swapping the pickups around, and that there are no rules… Oddly, EVH was also a person who would often say… “There are no rules.”
Great minds think alike I guess.
But so if the Wolfgang pickups are the same as what EVH played then why are people still chasing his tone?
Voltage is more accurate than resistance for volume, but I’d get a slightly hotter neck pickup to bridge when the joint is really angled like on Gibsons or some modern Superstrat-style guitar since that would make string distance per position differ way more; I can’t justify a vintage neck pickup anymore as you probably still wanna roll volume for clean tone and it’s nice to have variety of output for all positions.
Thank you for all this information. I'm looking for a way to pimp my 66 Guild Starfire with one vintage and one newer LB1. Magneto on the vintage Minihumbucker seems to be very, very week. Maybe I should start my try & error experiences right there..... ;-)
I can't handle the exact same pickups in Neck and bridge. A quick fix for that is neck humbucker coils in parallel and bridge humbucker coils in series.
It actually is very common, in my experience more common for vintage strats to have the hottest pickup in the neck or maybe the middle, but the weakest one in the bridge
Another viewer mentioned the same thing about vintage PAF humbuckers. People love vintage mythology while forgetting it was their complaints that changed how pickups are spec'd for guitars today.
Thank you, this is so very helpful! I wonder if the bridge pickup would natually sound smaller? I have an ibanez st style guitar and the resistence of the neck pickup is about 4.79 and bridge is about 9. However if I play them individually the neck pickup would sound louder than the bridge!
Good to know.
My tele neck is hot 7k and my bridge is 6k and it's fine
It all comes down to you. You can do anything you want. Just because its been that way doesn’t mean you can’t change things to your liking. Example being The
peavey Wolfgang neck pickup is slightly hotter than the bridge and the 3 way switch is wired backwards- thats the way
Eddie wanted it and as we all know he did lots of things his own way, who is to say he was wrong in doing what he wanted?
everyone should think out of the box every now and then , you will be better off for it
my favorite six string is currently using a modern take on a filtertron in the bridge, around 9.5k, and a telecaster 63 overwound bridge in the neck, around 7.8k, single 250k volume
Your comment is a perfect example of why it's so important that there are no rules to box us in with respect to pickup selection and placement.
@@HighlineGuitars thank you! thats my main metal machine and she stays in drop C - traditionally an active pickup guy but i started getting geeky with my gear recently and this provides me with all the main tones and semi tones in 90% of applications
The strings wiggle at the same frequency along the length of the string, but at some points they wiggle further than others getting the magnets more excited? Wiggle and excited ARE the appropriate scientific, engineering and technical terms for it.
Where I come from, we say the strings wobble and the magnets are agitated. 😉
@@HighlineGuitars SCIENCE
🤣
Wiggle and excited. "That's what She said." (sorry, just had to say it)
Because the string vibration amplitude is less near the bridge than at the neck. The pickups need to amplify the lesser sized vibrations.
Ya think?
@@HighlineGuitars I confess I didn't watch the video. The math brain kicked in. Reflexively answered the title. I take it I got it right. Taught math for a dozen years, but I'm no physics expert. Next time I'll watch the video. Sorry about that. I have gleaned some cool information from your videos, especially in the grain filler and finishing type of tutorial/examples. The drywall compound as grain filler was one of the coolest things I've learned about finishing. It has become hard to find the type of pre-made grain filler I used prior till.
Hey Chris, as always I respect your professional opinion and knowledge. You just touched base on my plight. I am going to build a guitar but I had in mind "one"nasty ass bridge pickup and I found one from Iron Gear called Metal Machine can you give any insight on this?
Can you be more specific about what info you need?
@@HighlineGuitars High Chris. I always play through the bridge pickup because I favor metal. I was wondering if would make sense to build a guitar using one badass humbucker getting rid of the switch and tone knob all together and could you recommend the best pickup for this?
@@robertr.jordan7675 I would keep the tone knob. You can try different capacitors to find one that actually makes a noticeable difference that you like. I don't have a recommendation for pickups. Use whatever you want.
Stopping at 5:40 to ask; Why not just put a pickup further from the bridge? Or can't they make a neck pickup bright and wide range enough to work alone? Because after all, at the highest fretted positions, the neck and bridge sound the same.
Actually, given that last point; Wouldn't a single middle-only pickup directly in between the last fret and the bridge be ideal? It would essentially get louder and MORE fundamental as you travel down the fretboard, peaking at the last fret, which is kinda where you need the most output since such a short position of string isn't going to have a lot of energy.
I think someone needs to train their ears.
@@HighlineGuitars My ears are fine. Go fret some strings a similar distance from the neck pickup as the tailpiece is from the bridge pickup and cycle between them with the switch. Yeah, because the bridge is hotter than the neck, you might get a slightly louder and/or more driven sound, but that's needless pedantry when the point is that they'll have the same balance of harmonic vs fundamental content.
I've tried this myself on my own guitar. Though maybe it being HH is why you think there's a greater discrepancy, in which case, do it on a guitar that has similar construction pickups, just one that's a little hotter.
What this leads to is the bridge being consistent, while the neck starts off strong, gets "stronger" or more fundamental towards the middle of the fretboard, and then starts to become weaker, but more harmonic at the end of the fretboard. By association, a middle pickup directly between the last fret and the bridge would start off decent on open strings and only get stronger and more fundamental as you travel down the fretboard since it'll be getting closer and closer to the virtual "middle" of the string.
Thanks for that.
Another thing I wonder about is pickup placement position... I've heard that they're placed at harmonic node points on the strings? Is this correct? Cheers.
That's nonsense. The nodes move with your fretting hand.
I prefer as much difference between the pickups as possible. They can then be blended in different proportions with seperate volume (and tone) controls. This also increases the hollow sound that you get when reversing the polarity of one of the pickups. This gives a very wide range of tones from just two pickups. That said Please, Please don't mollest a good guitar! Changing the pickups isn't too bad if the originals stay with the guitar. The same goes for the electronics. Please, Please, Please do not route out or make changes that are not easily reversible. Making or buying after market parts to experiment on and build a custom guitar is a great way to go. If you think that this rant is from someone who tries to restore damaged guitars you are right on.
Keeping anything vintage or at least having the ability to return stuff to vintage spec is a boomer thing. The younger generations just don't care. As boomer generation disappears, so too will the value of the stuff they cherished.
Sad but true.
@@HighlineGuitars I don’t agree that keeping the parts for a guitar when you change it is a boomer thing-it’s a smart thing. You never know if you want to return a Guitar to spec because a customer wants it for sale the way it was.
@@HighlineGuitars yes please don’t buy any vintage equipment so I can buy it all. Anyone who has played a good quality vintage guitar or amp knows the quality difference can be jarring between vintage and the new manufactured garbage. I just tried a 69 335 which was lighter and played better and sound better than anything out there.🎉
Thanks for the insight... So in short, is it the more windings the more bassy and the less windings the more high pitched? I'd love to know what type of micro farid would change the the pitch? Please help touch on this subject... I red of Van Halen touching this subject when I was a teenager but, that magazine is long gone. Sincerely: David Paul Rivera
High windings = a high level of DC resistance (ohms) which results in less treble and more bass.
Low windings = a low level of DC resistance (ohms) which results in more treble and less bass.
A more accurate way to determine the performance potential of a coil is to measure the level of inductance (henries). Measuring inductance is useful because it is affected by the addition of the magnet(s).
Another measurement we can use to determine the performance of a pickup is capacitance (picofarads). A pickup with a high level of capacitance will have less treble and more bass. A pickup with a low level of capacitance will have more treble and less bass.
@@HighlineGuitars I have a better view... I believe theres more to it too, right? I just keep frying up torn apart old power adaptors as I venture out on my quest...
😂💥... 😰💨🔥... 😌📚
@@HighlineGuitars When I used the LCR bridge to measure from the outside of the guitar, I found that the circuitry inside the guitar did not appear as an inductive load due to the coils, but rather as a capacitive load due to the capacitance connected to the tuning knob. I don't have enough guitars to do an in-depth study, but the inductance of the coils definitely affects the tone of the guitar. cheers!
Hello Sir! what can you say about single coil pickups that has these kind of specs? it has alnico 5 magnets
Neck pickup R:8.7k ohms
Middle pickup R:9.1k ohms
Bridge pickup R:9.9k ohms
are these hot or not? thank you for the input!
those are decent hot. Amazon specials are 5.5k
Hi Chris. I'm hoping you can help me. I am confused about my choice of glue. I have been using gorilla wood glue as it is easily available in the UK. I was taught in luthiery school to use titebond and I never got around to ordering any (I do have some coming in the post).
Now, as far as I can tell most of the discussions about the glue online are outdated and are confusing the gorilla wood glue with the original gorilla glue.
The wood glue is a water based pva but has the tag line "water resistant". The guitar making forums say to stay away from water resistant glues because of how they react with finish.
But there are no explanations of how those types of glues do affect finish.
On the carpentry forums they say to stay away from titebond 1 because it is not water resistant. And if it is exposed to water it will become tacky.
Now this is a dilemma. Because I wet down the wood to raise the grain before final sanding. And I will be using water based finishes.
My thinking is that on the forums they are worried about the water based finish beading on the glue line?
But shouldn't they be more worried about the non water resistant glue becoming tacky?
It seems to my logical mind that the gorilla wood glue would be better than titebond 1? But then again, I haven't got to the stage where I'm finishing yet.
I could do a test piece? I mean, if the finish stays nicely on top with no issues then surely it's better? No?
Better than a glue that is rated "for indoor use only" because of how it reacts to water?
Gorilla glue foams up and can be really messy. I only use it when gluing fretboards made from oily wood. Stick with Titebond. As long as you aren't sloppy with it, you won't have any problems with applying a finish. And stay away from the "luthier" forums.
@@HighlineGuitars Thanks. But I'm talking about the gorilla wood glue, not gorilla glue.
I guess the same question could be between titebond 1 and 2?
The question being; is it wise to spray water-based finish on an indoor use wood glue that is not water resistant (titebond 1) or is it better to use a water resistant glue (titebond 2)?
@@HumunculousInPants Hi Shane, I know you didn't ask me but I've used the Gorilla PVA Wood glue on every guitar I've made (not the Gorilla Glue which is a PU glue and foams in the presence of moisture).
Compared to Titebond I find it dries super clear, which sounds good in theory, but can look like a black line if your edges weren't perfectly square (less of an issue if you use dark veneers between lighter layers). Unlike the titebonds that might dry with a yellow/tan hue. But that's the only negative I've found with it. If that is indeed a negative
Oh, and I've used it on oil finishes, oil and water polyurethane finishes and acrylic clear coats.
@@HumunculousInPants I don't know. I don't spray water-based finish onto wood glue, Titebond, or Gorilla.
I see alot 8, and 9k bridge and neck sets, is that standard?
There is no standard for this. Only builder/player preference.
Yet PAFs are basically the same output at both the neck and bridge. And nobody complains about how they sound.
They don’t complain today, but they did in the past, which is why pickup makers started winding the bridge hotter.
Hi Sir,can you create new body for me?
Sorry, but I don’t make parts.
If your not happy with your body, go to a gym.