Neck pickup reversing a quick mod to get a brighter tone ?

[vinlander]

Since I am a couple hours away from cutting the top on my regent, I was thinking about pickup placement and the relative position to the imaginary 24th fret (harmonic). Someone on the TF pickup placement thread told us about the fact his neck pup was more or less under 22nd 23rd fret and if he would reverse the pup the magnet would be exactly under the 24th harmonics...
Now my question is can we simply just reverse 180 degree the pickup and would that really make a huge difference ?
I am asking because I find it could be an easy way to quickly brighten a tone without messing with any electronics really.
I know some folk do that with their bridge pup when it is too bright, but have anyone experimented with their neck pup to brighten their tone and make it more 175ish ?

[GoergeBenson]

You could do that but it would make the tone different and by that I mean thinner or fatter as opposed to brighter or darker.

You would also have a strange kinda middle position sound.

I don't know. Best thing is to put the pole pieces and pickup where it sounds the best. That way you have the adjustable pole pieces in the right place and you can adjust accordingly. Bodges are never a good idea, because they always leave you hamstrung down the road and reversing the pickup to get a different tone, sounds like a poor mans bodge, (unless i'm missing the obvious here?)

[SamBooka]

Do you understand why the 24th fret harmonic is important for notes other than open strings? Once you understand that you will be able to make the correct pickup placement decision.

[newsense]

This is my amateur take on neck pickup placement: there is no real need for it to be exactly at the imaginary 24th fret, just somewhere in that vicinity. Imagine you are playing a note at the twelfth fret; if the pickup is bang on the 24th fret position it will see the maximum ratio of fundamental to higher harmonic amplitude i.e. you get a very mellow tone, but as soon as you move to say the 10th or 14th fret, you have lost that unique position. The fundamental will still be most prominent, but you will also have more harmonic content than at the 12th. So, in normal playing there is no precisely perfect position. Certainly if you play a lot between the the 10th and 14th frets, then the ideal position for the pickup is under the imaginary 24th, but if you play more below the 10th then your pickup needs to be even further from the bridge to get the maximum fundamental amplitude - this is why many jazz guitars have only 20 rather than 22 frets.

[Franz 1997]

If you reverse the pickup in the mounting, wherever it is placed, it will make very little difference. Why? cos the magnet is right in the centre of the pickup. Magnetism flows both up the visible pole pieces AND the stud poles on the other side that are hidden under the cover. By raising/lowering the polepieces, you are slightly adjusting the polepiece signal in relation to the stud side signal, that's all.

So you can see that reversing the pickup in the mounting is going to achieve very little.

Re 24th fret etc., post no 3 says it all IMO

You can brighten the signal by dropping the pickup right down in the mounting and then raising the adjustable pole pieces right up to the strings. I'm not recommending it at all, but it does work, if you want thin and bright..

[newsense]

Do you understand why the 24th fret harmonic is important for notes other than open strings? Once you understand that you will be able to make the correct pickup placement decision.

I didn't quite get this ? Was that all "notes other than open strings", or just those that have harmonic nodes and anti-nodes close to the mythical 24th ?

[PTChristopher2]

Would anyone care to explain the specific value of placing a pickup so some particular part of it is under the 24th fret position?

And when placing a humbucking PU, can you also identify why one particular set of pole pieces should be under the 24th, and why the other set should be closer to or farther from the bridge?

Has anyone reversed a humbucking PU and measured a difference vs. having read about it somewhere?

Thanks.

[Franz 1997]

I think post 3 was suggesting that there's little or no value in a 'magic 24th fret' ( other than open strings, possibly) for any practical purpose.

Unless I am mistaking what I think is irony for something quite different..

[newsense]

Would anyone care to explain the specific value of placing a pickup so some particular part of it is under the 24th fret position?

I believe can explain the effect of placing a pickup (single coil or hb) under the 24th fret; explaining the value of doing so is a very different thing.

[PTChristopher2]

Can anyone explain the effect? I mean we all get into interpretation of what something means while passing over what it is.

[newsense]

I think post 3 was suggesting that there's little or no value in a 'magic 24th fret' ( other than open strings, possibly) for any practical purpose.

Unless I am mistaking what I think is irony for something quite different..

In that case, I think we are somewhat in agreement.

Reversing the humbucker shouldn't make much difference, unless it is wound asymmetrically, as both sets of poles pickup the vibration amplitude from the string as voltages which are then summed. The fundamental and lower harmonics from the two poles tend to be almost in phase so add constructively, whilst the very high harmonics tend to be more out of phase and cancel. Rotating through 180 shouldn't make a difference if the two poles have similar windings.

[PTChristopher2]

Incredibly enough I am not trying to be a jerk here. I am very curious about how we picture strings vibrating and how we expect PU's to work based on the vibrations.

It just seems to me that you do better starting not with the the 24th fret locale as somehow well propertied. Maybe better to start with what the string is actually doing?

I am wrong quite a bit on how people prefer to think of things though.

[newsense]

Chris - I totally agree. The 24th fret is only "good" if you spend all your time playing near the 12th fret and you want a tone dominated by the fundamental. That's pretty restrictive. Hence exact positioning probably comes down to a matter of the taste of the builder or designer - hey, now I'm being the jerk, naively telling you something you already know !

There is no perfect position...

Maybe, as an exercise, I can calculate something about the harmonic content of notes along the length of the fretboard as a function of pickup position, but its unlikely to be this week (or month, or year).

[PTChristopher2]

>>> naively telling you something you already know !

Please do help anytime. I get quite a bit out of thoughtful input in these sorts of discussions.

In my opinion, what I may know, or think I know, does not matter to the string or the PU. Same for what some name-dropping wanna-be may interpret 'cause Benson thinks this too.

I just find that the best results come from a sanity check of what we are doing in the first place before coming to the great conclusion.

Would anyone really think brass nuts increase sustain overall if they thought it through? Same for the magic of the 24th fret real estate.

This first came up when guitars started having 24 frets and the idea was readily thrown around that the displaced neck PU would goof up the planet somehow. It only meant that the neck PU sounded a bit more harmonically rich and brighter. No magic was lost.

In my view (with a bit of looking into it over time, but always needing improvement), strings do a number of things when we pluck them. I divide them in a particular way because it is convenient for working on guitars, not because it is particularly "true" at all.

1. The primary vibration. (Trying to avoid saying "node" for some reason.) This is the full free length of the string from the nut or fret to the bridge.

2. The standing harmonics. These are the vibrations that are 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, etc. of the primary.

3. The moving (my term of convenience) harmonics. These travel up and down the string, many decay very quickly.

4. The transient vibrations. These can be dissonant and atonal, and include scratches, pick impact sounds, and general farts mostly at the attack.

5. Longitudinal vibrations - the string compressing and expanding along its length. These are almost impossible to pickup with a magnetic PU, and in my opinion are a notable part of the acoustic character that many feel is missing through a magnetic PU.

My list has problems. For ex: The "clang" you can get with a string string attack is a very specific sound type but is probably a combination of 4,3, and even a high-order 2.

With all of this going on, and with our brain's emphasis on the attack for "tone" interpretation, I do not see any reason to aim for a specific PU position on the open string at all. Nothing even close to audible happens right at the 24th, even when playing exactly at the 12th.

Where and how we pick the string has a far greater effect on eventual electrical sound of a given note vs. the specific nodal (oops) position of the PU.

The general position of the PU matters a great deal.

So closer positioning of a PU to the bridge is generally brighter with reduced emphasis on the primary vibration when playing below the 12th fret on most guitars. This effect becomes less significant, and changes somewhat, past the 12th. In my opinion.

As for reversing a PU, I think this is up there with "Reverse the controls!!!" to save an airplane from crashing in a 1950's movie.

But others may have genuine anecdotal experiences to the contrary.

Chris

[Jimmy Mack]

Should ? or Shouldn't ?

Hey, only screws hold it in position (most of the time) Reverse them, adjust heights and pole piece (screws) heights until you are satisfied. And listen to results. And reversible.

I have done this on 2 guitars where I didn't want to change p/ups, both with Gibson neck humbuckers. With these, I believe it's necessary to reduce some muddiness. One was on my L5CES and the other , my Lucille with Classic 57+ in the neck. Both guitars became a touch clearer and snappier. Adjustable pole pieces = closer to the bridge, and then raise them up closer to the strings, relative to the other half, with the slugs down lower. Someone somewhere felt this got them a tiny bit closer to single coil effects.

Whatever the physics, I liked the results and would do it many times over.

I also like Guild's idea of having 3 height screws. That way, you can tilt the p/up to enhance the effect. I now use a DeArmond GoldTone p/up on my Lucille (built like a Guild p/up.)

[PTChristopher2]

>>> I also like Guild's idea of having 3 height screws.

Absolutely. This is an effective adjustment in my opinion, and an enduring shortfall in the general world of HB PU mounting.

Chris

[D.G.]

The only solution I've found is to ditch humbuckers altogether I use P90s and CC pups in my archtops. I would also recommend the Duncan Prails as well, especially the p90 and parallel settings. But, to each their own!

[GuyBoden]

I am very curious about how we picture strings vibrating.

These aren't 12 gauge.

These look a bit slack.

[GuyBoden]

I would also recommend the Duncan Prails as well, especially the p90 and parallel settings. But, to each their own!

Yes, these are interesting:

[newsense]

So closer positioning of a PU to the bridge is generally brighter with reduced emphasis on the primary vibration when playing below the 12th fret on most guitars. This effect becomes less significant, and changes somewhat, past the 12th. In my opinion.

Chris

Chris - to keep it short I didn't quote your whole post, but I totally agree - which somehow seems contrary to the spirit of forums !

[PTChristopher2]

>>> but I totally agree - which somehow seems contrary to the spirit of forums !

Well you are WRRRROOOOONG!!!

Or something like that.

But there may very well be other points of view that include specific, if unusual, cases where someone hit a genuine "sweet spot" for a PU that was vibration node based. I have just never seen one.

Chris

[Franz 1997]

By now, the OP will have cut the top of his Epi…maybe someone should ask how it went?? Cutting tops always a bit nervewracking, so maybe pickup reversing seems a less pressing concern...

How did it go, Vinlander??

[helios]

Hello,
I tried it (reversing neck HB) on my Epi Byrdland. Imagine a tone that lies somewhere between the neck pickup alone, and both pickups together, and that's what it sounded like to me. Added note: The pickup in this experiment was an "Unbalanced" Fralin "Unbucker", which has more winding on the screw coil.
It 's easy enough to try next time you change strings, and easy enough to return to stock (which I did). I notice that there's an L5 Wes on ebay (See photo) with such a reversal:

[oldane]

But there may very well be other points of view that include specific, if unusual, cases where someone hit a genuine "sweet spot" for a PU that was vibration node based. I have just never seen one.

Chris

I don't believe in any specific placement being a particularly sweet spot - especially not related to string nodes (of the open string, which we rarely use). But I do believe that the tone gets mellower and more spread the closer to the fretboard the pickup is placed. And the closer to the bridge it's placed, the more midrange colored and compact the tone will be. I think that expains the difference in tone between a 175 and an L4 (more than the woods used). On the L4 the pickup is closer to the neck than on the 175. I think I have mentioned before some time ago that when I ordered a guitar from Tom Painter, I specified the pickup blade to be placed under the imaginary 24th fret. Not because there was anything magical about this particular position as compared to any other position, but I wanted it closer to the neck than standard and since I had to specify something, this was it.

[PTChristopher2]

Hiya OD,

As best as I can tell the whole 24th fret thing for PU placement is an artifact of mankind's search for purpose and ego-based determinism.

I would have loved the Byrdland if they had left the fiddly bottom off the FB and also knocked off a fret or two. This would have let them put the neck PU in a far more all-around useful place to my ears.

I have one of the Corona Guild X-180s which are 20 fret guitars. While the neck PU is not as far north as possible, the roughly 22.5 fret location of the upper coil sounds just superbly warm and full.

Chris