How often do you use the full bridge humbucker?

[vejichan]

How often do you use the full bridge humbucker in your guitar? Also, what other pickup position/configuration do you use alot?

For me. In my 20years of playing. With either HH and SSH pickups guitars...i find i pretty much use bridge pickup all the time in hi gain and the neck single coil or hum necj split with the bridge split when playing clean similar to the petrucci

 

[sonoftheoldnorth]

Well probably somewhere about 0% of the time, as I don't own a Suhr guitar

 

[Emperoff]

Most of the time.

I don't like hi-gain neck pickup lead tones. I find them dull, boring, and inexpressive. I prefer a bridge pickup with a warm tone dialed in. It gets vocal when you want it, it's easier to do harmonics... etc. Kinda in the vein of Andy Timmons (In fact he uses different pedals for bridge and neck pickup position), Mikael Akerfeldt's older stuff, Marty Friedman, and many others as well.

I prefer the neck pickup only for clean and crunch stuff, and even then most of the time I blend it with the bridge pickup.

 

[Captain Shoggoth]

I only play solos on the bridge pickup with a fairly bright, aggressive tone a la Marty Friedman, Alexi Laiho, Brandon Ellis. Neck sounds too clean and safe. For hi-gain or crunch rhythm it's bridge, either full, split or position 2. Clean it's usually position 2 or 4. Occasionally I'll use the neck humbucker with the tone rolled way down for background lead work.

 

[TedEH]

I'm always pretty surprised when someone uses a neck pickup for gainy rhythms.

Leads are a different story though - I tend to like when it's contextual, like using the neck for the high bits to get the smooth noodly bits, and if you get low enough for the notes to be wooly instead of smooth, switch back to bridge. Unless you've got a mid-gain type deal going where you want a lot of texture more than smoothness.

 

[bostjan]

My two most main guitars right now have only a bridge humbucker, and I am currently only using the others for recording and for side projects, so, probably >90% of the time.

Don't get me wrong, neck pickups are great to have, but with the styles I typically play, I see it as more of an accent or even a flourish.

 

[Lemonbaby]

I don't understand the question...

 

[RevDrucifer]

In the studio- 100% of the time.

Live it depends on what guitar I’m playing.

Split-coils are just a “this’ll get me by” thing to me. I used to think the split coils in my PRS were incredible, until I got my SSS Strat and realized what I wasn’t getting out of the PRS.

I’d rather re-tune one of my Strats to record a single coil part in the studio than rely on split coils. But live, if the majority of the song uses humbuckers and only has one section where I need to switch to a clean sound, I’m not going to change guitars live.

I’ve yet to hear a split-coil, distorted or not, that sounds better than an actual single coil, but have been surprised at some single coils (Duncan SSL-5) sound more like a humbucker than a single coil.

 

[ShredmasterD]

90% of the time . otherwise for clean strumming, finger style or for some lead work i will use the neck pickup, but why ask?

 

[Drew]

Essentially all of the time for distorted rhythm playing.

For leads... um, idunno. Whenever it fits whats in my head more than the neck? Whenever it sounds right.

 

[Baelzebeard]

100% for distorted rhythm

Occasionally I'll dabble with the neck pickup to get a "liquid" lead tone. Tons of gain, warm tone, delay.

Clean tones are usually HH middle position with the neck coils set to parallel. Super clear glassy, "piano" tone. Quiet though, benefits from a clean boost.

 

[CanserDYI]

Neck is for liquid leads and cleans.

Bridge is always full humbucker and always for rhythm. No other options.

 

[jaxadam]

Almost 100% of the time I'm using the bridge humbucker damn near all the time. But only if it's an EMG81 with two 9 volt batteries.

 

[bigcupholder]

I really only use the neck pickup for cleans. Bridge for everything else.

 

[eaeolian]

Almost 100% of the time I'm using the bridge humbucker damn near all the time. But only if it's an EMG81 with two 9 volt batteries.

From the department of redundancy department?

 

[vejichan]

surprised i'm not the only one. So we are basically getting the other pickups either HH/SSH/HSH>. its pretty much how you like the guitar to look at this point since we mostly just use the bridge pickup.

 

[TedEH]

I mean, several people admitted uses for other pickup setups - but you're also talking to a niche community that's slanted towards metal and other heavier styles of music that all have similar tonal needs. Ask the same question on a country music forum and you'll probably get very different answers.

 

[Dayn]

Most of the time, but I'm starting to like the neck pickup in some of my guitars for metal rhythm. My tone can be quite bright, to the point I've found using the neck (or both bridge and neck together) still has enough bite to sound tight, but also thicker. I usually prefer the neck for leads. So it's good to not have to really change amp settings.

I only have HH guitars, and all but one have coil splits.

 

[jaxadam]

From the department of redundancy department?

You don’t miss much!

 

[mehegama]

Rhythm high gain tones are played only in the bridge position. The neck pickup is muddier for rhythm guitar. For lead guitar, especially for fast alternate picking licks, i only play them on the neck pickup as the tone for single note fast picking is tighter and more crisp. The bridge pick up for leads sounds too trebly\nasally.
So bridge pickup for rhythm, neck pick up for most leads.