Neck+bridge vs middle pickup

Elias Graves

Elias Graves

Common misfit
I was looking at some pics of old Gibson archtops with a single pickup in the middle and that's a setup you don't see much anymore. It's more common to see a neck only or a bridge only.

I got to wondering how a middle pickup alone sounds vs bridge and neck together.
Never played a guitar with a single center pickup.
Can anyone compare a middle only to a neck+bridge combo. Is it pretty similar?
 
I'n my experience, not very similar to a neck/bridge mix. The position on those old guitars tends to be based on harmonic nodes in the vibrating string...in theory...and where it sounds good in practice. You can really get some idea of the flavors with a guitar with a movable pickup, and moving the pickup around does alter the sound on a very clean setting. Moving it to the neck makes it fat, the 24th free harmonic makes it fat but not as fat as against the fretboard. The middle adds a bit more midrange to the sound, and moving it bridge wise makes things bright. Some jazz players will calculate where harmonic nodes are and position their pickups according to that, in a very mathematical manner, and others will put it where 'it sounds good'. As a strat/LP guy, I never really thought much of this until I played my first jazz guitar with a movable humbucker, and the tonal changes are pretty interesting and more dynamic than I had considered. The middle has a lot of range, which isn;t that surprising when you think of neck/bridge differences on a LP.
 
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not similar at all.

a middle pickup by itself is a very cool sound. in combination with other pickups is where the problem is.
 
I'm still not sure I understand. Since you have two pickups on the tele or paul you are hearing the strings from two difference places at once so you get the combined sound where the single pickup in the middle will just hear the middle section of string between those two pickups, like on a strat. I guess it would be like a strat where you can turn the neck pickup on independently of the 5 way switch so you can get a fake in-between tele sound or you can turn it off and put the 5 way in the middle to get just the middle pickup by itself. They sound pretty different in that context.
 
Oh, and to my ears, the middle position on those old guitars always sounded more 'natural', meaning it was like a louder version of the guitar played acoustically. Well balanced and almost acoustic in flavor, with a lot of harmonic overtones and such, but still more the 'sound of the guitar' and not really the pickup. I guess it is hard to explain clearly, so I guess go try it.
 
Mark Wein said:
I'm still not sure I understand. Since you have two pickups on the tele or paul you are hearing the strings from two difference places at once so you get the combined sound where the single pickup in the middle will just hear the middle section of string between those two pickups, like on a strat. I guess it would be like a strat where you can turn the neck pickup on independently of the 5 way switch so you can get a fake in-between tele sound or you can turn it off and put the 5 way in the middle to get just the middle pickup by itself. They sound pretty different in that context.
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I was just wondering if a bridge+neck (full, yet sharp with harmonics) where it pulled attributes of both positions sounded similar to one pickup that sat in the middle.
 
Tiltsta said:
Oh, and to my ears, the middle position on those old guitars always sounded more 'natural', meaning it was like a louder version of the guitar played acoustically. Well balanced and almost acoustic in flavor, with a lot of harmonic overtones and such, but still more the 'sound of the guitar' and not really the pickup. I guess it is hard to explain clearly, so I guess go try it.
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Not too many around to try.
 
I wish I had any sort of time over the next couple days... I have a Strat wired with a switch to throw the neck pickup into any combo. I'd record the difference between the neck+bridge and middle selections for you.
 
GilmourD said:
I wish I had any sort of time over the next couple days... I have a Strat wired with a switch to throw the neck pickup into any combo. I'd record the difference between the neck+bridge and middle selections for you.
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That would be pretty cool if you could find the time. :thu:
 
I have some experience with this as I have a strat with 3 single coil sized humbuckers hotrail in bridge, lil 59 in middle and JB in the neck. I have it hooked to a 5 way switch so you get 1,3,and 5 position you get each pickup alone and position 2 you get neck and mid and position 4 you get mid and bridge. I can tell you that the mid pickup is very sensitive and is much louder than the other 2, I had to adjust it down quite far to get it to match. It is very clean and clear, I really like the sound of the middle pickup and use it on that guitar often.

On a Les Paul custom, I installed a middle pickup for a guy a long time ago and messed with it and it was nice as well, I found it to not be as fat as the bridge, but again was louder than the bridge and neck and had to dial it down some, bot as much as the strat because of the scale and the distance between pickups.

An all around great usable sound for sure. a note on the LP, I do not recall the pickups, but I think they were all 3 the real super distortions.....lol!
 
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