The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
  1. #1

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    I have a 1984 Gibson ES-175. It has the Shaw humbuckers and I play usually only the neck pickup, which I like a lot.

    Sometimes I wonder the thin sound of the bridge pickup. Could the coils in it be in out of phase?

    Or do all the ES-175 bridge pickups sound as thin as this?

    1984 ES-175 – Is the bridge pu out of phase? - YouTube

    The pickups are about as close to the strings:

    Is this humbucker out of phase with itself?-img_3753-jpg

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  3. #2

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    That sounds normal to me. It's common for the bridge pickup to be thinner/quieter than the neck pickup, all else equal. That's why it has also become common for people to use hotter pickups in the bridge position and/or set the two pickups at different heights.