Do you dial drive tones per pickup?

[holoholo]

Wanted to hear the hive minds thoughts lol. When it comes to certain lead tones I dial in on my Strat bridge pickup (single coil), when I switch to my neck pickup it’s way too dark and boomy. But if I dial in tones on my neck pickup, the bridge tone will be pretty thin. I get that there are multiple factors at play but wanted to hear how everyone here does things.

 

[FuzzyAce]

This is why wiring the second tone pot for the bridge pickup only is a good idea.
Or put a humbucker in the bridge. Or hit another drive for the bridge pickup only. A lot of ways to do it, none are wrong.

 

[Sascha Franck]

At least for live, I'm not using guitars requiring sound adjustments per pickup. At home, I do whatever the situation needs.

 

[holoholo]

This is why wiring the second tone pot for the bridge pickup only is a good idea.
Or put a humbucker in the bridge. Or hit another drive for the bridge pickup only. A lot of ways to do it, none are wrong.

Yep I already have 2nd tone pot on bridge. Running a little hotter pickup in the virtual solo. It always feels like a balance act.

 

[ian_dissonance]

I mean, that’s kind of the idea of different pickups in different locations, no? I’m not using my neck pickup often, but I would think you’d either want the tonal difference for the switch or you’d set up a scene/eq/od on a switch to account for what you don’t like.

 

[Achilles]

Play with the pickup height screws till you get the balance you want.

Unique presets per pickup position on a single guitar is whacked imo.

 

[dk_ace]

I dial it in so that the preset is maybe a touch too bright on either pickup, then I use the guitar tone knob to dial things back whatever is best for the part I’m playing. Sometimes that means I take the tone knob really low like 3ish.

That said, I’ve given some thought to making a foot switch that jumps between a beefier bridge pickup sound and a softer, brighter neck pickup sound. I’ll still use my tone and volume knobs, but I kinda want to try this in addition to the knobs. I’ve thought about it before, but the Grissom DGT15 video I saw last night brought it back to mind for me.

D

 

[FuzzyAce]

That said, I’ve given some thought to making a foot switch that jumps between a beefier bridge pickup sound and a softer, brighter neck pickup sound. I’ll still use my tone and volume knobs, but I kinda want to try this in addition to the knobs. I’ve thought about it before, but the Grissom DGT15 video I saw last night brought it back to mind for me.

D

You could try a few mini switches? Yeah I know, it's a couple more things you have to do quickly in the middle of a song for the desired effect, but it is useful. I have 2 switches on my no.1, each is a parallel/series for the neck and bridge. It does exactly what you describe by softening the neck when in parallel mode, and the bridge can stay beefy in series mode or twangier in parallel. It's a very flexible setup.

 

[PLX]

Yeah.. pretty much have to.

 

[ragingplatypi]

Personally I’d swap out pickups if that was a problem. My main guitar is HSS and I dial my amps to be edge of breakup on the singles, and overdriven on the humbucker.

 

[laxu]

I dial it in so that the preset is maybe a touch too bright on either pickup, then I use the guitar tone knob to dial things back whatever is best for the part I’m playing.

This is what I do. I have it dialed for too much gain and too bright with the knobs on 10, then simply back those off to get what I actually want.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

This is what I do. I have it dialed for too much gain and too bright with the knobs on 10, then simply back those off to get what I actually want.

Worked for Jeff Beck...

 

[CakeEater]

This is why wiring the second tone pot for the bridge pickup only is a good idea.
Or put a humbucker in the bridge. Or hit another drive for the bridge pickup only. A lot of ways to do it, none are wrong.

This is absolutely it, the bridge pickup needs to be really fat, a rail, a thin P90/humbucker, or an actual P90/humbucker with tone control 2 wired to it. The neck and middle pickups get along fine on the same tone control. IMO this beats standard SSS or HH for versatility.

 

[CakeEater]

This is what I do. I have it dialed for too much gain and too bright with the knobs on 10, then simply back those off to get what I actually want.

Yep, vol 4 = clean, vol 7 = crunch, vol 10 = drive/lead

 

[holoholo]

I think I’m going to play with my pickup heights more.

The thing is I only really notice this on higher gain tones. But whenever I watch John Cordy dial in his tones (which I like) to his bridge, when he switches to the neck it has that way too dark sound as well. So doesn’t seem like it’s just me.

I even went down a rabbit hole last night. I’ll test some tones with a low cut on the neck pickup, then I could add that low cut via a capacitor/resistor network to my neck pickup to cut some bass after finding the appropriate value.

 

[Achilles]

Whenever I watch John Cordy dial in his tones (which I like) to his bridge, when he switches to the neck it has that way too dark sound as well. So doesn’t seem like it’s just me.

It's been that way since those pickup combos came out in the 50s!
Pickup height relations to one another helps a lot and then I find myself adjusting where I'm picking helps too.

Neck woof is mostly fine but if you need to cut through try picking the strings closer to the bridge.

 

[holoholo]

I’d probably sign for a tone knob of the neck pup being the gain of al low shelf filter, or maybe a low cut control. I wouldn’t want a low cut permanently cause for cleans I’d like the low end to be there.

I’m thinking of doing that since I leave my tone pot on 10 (except for the bridge pot). Maybe wiring a low cut might be more useful.