Pros & Cons of having just one..

[Oceandrinksboat]

Pickup.

I saw an Agile I wanted, but it only had one pup. so I just wanted to know whats good and bad about a guitar with 1 pickup.

 

[TremontiFan16]

Good:Simplicity
Bad:1 less pickup
/Thread
Seriously,it's just a guitar with one less pickup.Less tonal options but if you only use the bridge pickup it makes sense.

 

[TheWarAgainstTime]

^that.

I have a guitar that I've only had a single bridge pickup and volume knob on, but I recently added a neck pickup because I missed having warmer cleans and rounder solo tones.

If you don't think you need a neck pickup, then it should be fine to only have the bridge pickup.

 

[MoshJosh]

I think a lot of people like to do leads on the neck pup but thats not to say you can't play them on the bridge

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Great for some straight forward metal or punk.

Just less tonal options, as stated above. I have a guitar with one pup but have a coil split for at least some variation.

Is there a tone knob?

 

[IanCBoss]

If theres a tone knob then you can roll that off to imitate the neck pickup.

I have a guitar that has one P90 that is meant for the neck position in the bridge and a volume knob and that's it and it does exactly what I need it too. You're going to lose some versatility, yes, but if you're competent on your instrument you'll still be able to get a range of tones.

 

[Alex Kenivel]

If theres a tone knob then you can roll that off to imitate the neck pickup.

Exactly where I was going

 

[TRENCHLORD]

Always have had a thing for single-bucker guitars.
Looks cool and terribly simple to wire up and swap pups.
Neck cleans are hard to duplicate, but there's many things you can do to thicken and round-off the tone for lead playing.

 

[AliceLG]

There's some versatility to be had with a single pup guitar but it takes some creative wiring so to speak. If I had a single pup I would wire a 3-way for series/single/parallel and also get a push-push pot for volume and switching the output between going straight to the jack or through a capacitor and resistance (low-pass filter) first.

I've also heard that single pups have crazy sustain, something to do with less magnetic pull decelerating string vibration due to one less pup. It makes sense but I haven't had the chance to compare.

 

[Pat_tct]

Back after a rather long sso-break.

having just on Pickup doesn't mean that you have less tonal options. but you have to be more creative to get different tones. it forces you to use different hand positions, picking techniques and articulation. Use a singe pickup guitar and try to get as many sounds out of it playing the same riff/lick by using different picks, finger picking or hybrid picking or playing the position on where you pick.

Plenty of stuff that you can do.

 

[Nag]

Without the neck humbucker :
- rhythm stuff is going to sound aggressive because of the tightness, brightness and attack that's inherent to bridge pickups. you'll have to say no to the muddier neck pickup rhythm sound if that's what you're after, but AFAIK most people go full bridge for riffage anyway
- lead stuff is gonna sound more aggressive, might get shrieky in the high notes BUT with the right amp settings (milder gain, milder overdrive if you use a pedal to boost) you can get a very nice lead sound. listen to old Children Of Bodom and you'll see what good sounding bridge-only lead guitar sounds like
- I don't like bridge cleans because of how they sound, but that's personal taste. you'll just have to roll the volume WAY down if you don't want massive clipping.

Single pickup guitars seem to be more of a metal rhythm thing, where you're always on high gain full power. but if the bridge pickup sounds good for everything you want to do, you'll be fine.

 

[frahmans]

If Eddie van Halen made do with one pickup through 80s and part of the 90s, and able to make the sounds he did, it is still versatile.

I think Nagash touched it. You need to find the right bridge pickup for it.

 

[xzyryabx]

yup, one was good enough for Marty Friedman

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

Eddie van Halen

Marty Friedman

Quoting these 2 guys as they have very interesting yet different approaches to how they used just one pickup to get a variety of tones.

EVH once delcared that the volume knob is in fact the guitar's tone knob. A true volume knob warrior, Ed managed to get many different sounds just by rolling off a few levels. That's not even considering picking placement and dynamics. It's a dying art that hasn't been as prominent as it was in the 70s. There are some guys like Adam Jones and Bill Kelliher who still champion the volume knob. I'd love to see more modern players like that.

Marty Friedman on the other hand is almost all picking dynamics. I remember his red Ibanez SZ sig that didn't even have a volume knob, just 1 pickup and a killswitch. As simple as it gets. Granted that he uses outboard gear like effects or channel switching to change clean to dirty etc, paying attention to his clean playing and it'll be apparent.

While both players also use guitars with neck pickups, their playing styles are still largely based on the above principles.

Also, this is a pretty cool example of what you can do with just one pickup.

 

[Hollowway]

Staying with just one can be good since it gives you some security in that you don't have to be thinking of whether you should be switching or not. Committing to just one like that can give you sort of a boost in confidence.

But only having one can make you yearn for more, because you're always going to wonder what it would be like with another. So in that sense, variety is good. I don't think there's just one right answer, but I firmly believe you shouldn't settle on just one until you've tried a couple.

Wait, we're talking about girls here, right?

 

[Fathand]

Pickup.

I saw an Agile I wanted, but it only had one pup. so I just wanted to know whats good and bad about a guitar with 1 pickup.

Depends on your needs. Use a lot of neck PU to do solos? Bad. You're a rhythm player who uses 99% time just the bridge PU? Good.

I'd say you have to look at your playing and your gear - does it fill a need for you. For example, I prefer 1 x PU + 1 x Vol guitars over everything else for simplicity and that they fit my style perfectly, but I have a few with neck pickups just because sometimes I like that fatter neck PU sound.

Like in most (or all, IMO) music related issues - there's no good or bad. Just different opinions and needs.

 

[123321123]

It's a cosmetic statement pretty much.

 

[wat]

Less magnetic pull on the strings which does affect the sound.

 

[feraledge]

Word of advice.
I recognized that live I really only needed a bridge PUP. I only use a neck for cleans, but turns out that even the songs that had some are the ones that didn't stay on the set list long. So I bought what I considered my ideal guitar: an ESP M-I.
But since I like messing around with cleans personally, I decided to get it routed for a neck PUP by a highly regarded luthier. He did a clean job on the route, but it was 1/16" off center and he nabbed the end of the fretboard when drilling the electronics route. I didn't notice either of these things immediately and took my guitar back with me to the other side of the state.
I couldn't look at it. I couldn't live with it. I was bummed for a long time, but it's like it was taunting me for rejecting it's straight forward simplicity.

Moral of the story: if you get a one PUP guitar, get it because you want something straightforward for clear reasons and don't expect more from it.