Why a bridge pickup if you only want a jazz tone?

[neatomic]

if you are using a non humbucking neck pickup…like a p90, cc or a dynasonic.. having a bridge pickup will give you the option of getting rid of the single coil hum..provided your pups are reverse wound (most new single coil guitars are nowadays) and you set your volumes equally...

its an option to tame your hum...

cheers

[Ric Lee]

Yes, I believe that all guitars with two pickups and Gibson electronics should have the Jimmy Page wiring :-) It is just phenomenally versatile and it does nothing to the cosmetics of the guitar. In particular that parallel series switching in the middle position I find to be a great tone that I would not want to miss (I have it on a Les Paul type guitar and some semi-hollows).

I'm actually installing the jimmy page wiring on my Samick RL40 I will try it out with 11 flatwounds and just have the switches to play around with. The wiring harness was on sale from Sigler music for 49.00 presoldered with good components and was cheaper than a standard wiring scheme. I also had a Dimarzio 36 and a Pete Biloft pu laying around so I decided to just replace all the electronics. I'll make sure to try that position out.

i do find for jazz applications on big hollowbodies the 2 pickup guitars, even playing just the neck pu, sound different from the single pu.

[Cunamara]

I never use the bridge pickup on any of my guitars, even before I played jazz. When I built my jazz Tele, i didn't put in a bridge puckup. My main archtop doesn't have a bridge pickup. My GB10 has one but I never use it. I've always preferred the fat neck tone.

[citizenk74]

In the house there's a difference, but that's not where it counts.

Danny W.[/QUOTE]

And that, boys and girls, is it in a nutshell.

[Herbie]

Let's hear what the science has to say about the 1 pu thing.
Professor Phil X, stage is Yours:

Personally I dig the simplicity and the looks of 1pu guitar.
It is a bit like a dogma for my playing: when I don't have anything but one sound I have to concentrate on the substance, the music, and try to accommodate that sound to variety of songs and atmospheres merely by playing styles and with the notes I play.
But its just me.

[wildschwein]

Yes, I believe that all guitars with two pickups and Gibson electronics should have the Jimmy Page wiring :-) It is just phenomenally versatile and it does nothing to the cosmetics of the guitar. In particular that parallel series switching in the middle position I find to be a great tone that I would not want to miss (I have it on a Les Paul type guitar and some semi-hollows).

Yeah I love the JP scheme and have iterations of it on many of my guitars and the full ka-boodle on a Les Paul. Both pickups in series is a great tone for sure. So thick and beefy. I don't know what I did before I discovered that. Conversely I'm a big fan of out of phase as well.

[pingu]

i use the switch on my 2 pu guit
as a mute too ..... handy

i wore it out and replaced it with
a proper switchcraft one
perfect now ....

i do like the look of a one pu guit tho

[Greentone]

For 35 years I used a one-pickup ES-175 as my main guitar...loved it. For the last ten years, I have chiefly used two-pickup CES-style guitars almost exclusively...even with my 175 handy. Now, I love me some 175, but the sound of my Aria Pro II PE-180 (Super-V CES copy), and my Heritage Super Eagle (twin Schaller humbuckers) on their neck pickups is just _too_ good to ignore. Even the ES-335 on the neck pickup is to die for.

I have just gotten used to the sound and feel of the two pickups being there--even if I use only the neck pickup.

[jzucker]

So Wes did not get that traditional classic tone?

the seminal wes sound is a 2 pickup guitar and he actually did a lot of gigs using the middle position

[Northenlights]

Although I mostly use the neck pickup when playing jazz, the bridge pickup can help bring out the chime when doing the Ted Greene/Tommy Emmanuel harp-like harmonics thing. Harmonics in general can be hard to really emphasize on the neck pickup, especially if your tone knob is turned down. But for anything else than those kind of special effects, I don't believe anything other than neck pickup is nessecary.

[ArchieTop]

An audience member asks the jazz guitarist how he likes the rear pickup on his axe.

He replies, "I'm really not sure. I mean, I know it was working when I bought the guitar."

[DanielleOM]

I just view that 2nd pickup and the associated controls as a potential source of buzzes and rattles.

[GNAPPI]

To me a bridge PUP alone is useless, but when mixed with the neck pup it's (to me) an invaluable tool. Roll off the bridge volume and tone a bit with the switch in the middle and I have a new instrument.

I always wonder why the most popular hollow body guitars for a genre other than rock the two pup is overwhelmingly produced 4-5x more by makers. It's not like I see many two pup hollow body models on stage in the hands of rockers. I find that many or most of the lower $ end hollow bodies (in the $800-$1200) class are not made in single pup configuration at all. Why? Are they... Newbies to softer music? uninformed? tone deaf? classless? stupid? :-)

One pup / two pup models from many makers are made, and simple math says if players preferred one pup models the majority of the quantities made would be the single pup. Check out my numbers, look up the used market on say the ES-175 or other model where one and two pup models are catalogued on Ebay. I've done it several times and approximately ~80 of 100 for sale are "D" models.

If one pup with one set of controls to less dampen the top really, REALLY sounded better I see no reason for a two pup model to exist.

So I guess the larger question is why would anybody select a two pup model when a model with one is available?

[Greentone]

GNAPPI,

Answer: ears, right? I say this as someone who played a single pickup jazz archtop for most of his life, and whose principle archtop now is a single pickup model. However, to me, the best sounding L5 remains the two-pickup CES. That said, it is VERY hard to top the L5CES for an all-around (or as Roger puts it, generic) jazz tone.

Also, if you have a two pickup ES-175 or L-5, you have maybe the two greatest funk guitars ever made. Robert White played both--to perfection. Freddie Stone did, too. I do not want to discount any of Steve Cropper's or Joe Messina's contributions to funk made on Telecasters, but the work done by White and Stone really stands out. (So does Leo Nocentelli's stuff, some of which was done on a Fender Starcaster.)

[docbop]

I just view that 2nd pickup and the associated controls as a potential source of buzzes and rattles.

I feel the same way more hassle than it's worth. When playing all styles of music it can be handy, but Jazz only no.

[mad dog]

I think it depends on your taste in tone, also on the specific guitar and pickups you are considering.

I practice jazz on three guitars:

- Heritage H575 Custom
- Seventy Seven Albatross Standard P90
- 50s Silvertone 1427

For the first two, pickup selector never moves. Always neck only, always with some tone rolled off. Different with the Silvertone. It's ES-175 size more or less, a bit shallower body. Light or no bracing. Two P13 pickups. On this guitar tone knobs never get rolled off. The P13s are pretty dark at lower and medium volumes. Neck only is sort of muffled until volume is full up. So I play this one on the middle position. It's a perfect jazz tone to my ears. Traditional, but an older type of traditional sound.

I had considered getting a one p/u version of a Harmony or Silvertone P13 type guitar. Sure glad I didn't. Aside from how good my two p/u 1427 sounds for jazz, it can be wired for out of phase sounds too. Which is a whole different story, for another thread and taste.
MD

[icr]

I use my bridge pickups. But if I didn't I'd get different guitars or remove them. They rattle too much. Especially since they are right near the bridge. The worst spot for rattling.

[nopedals]

One less thing to rattle, short, forget about setting properly, or whatever.

[Robertkoa]

Good question.

I never really liked the Bridge Pickup by itself even for Rock or Blues type stuff.

But if you have a separate tone control ( for bridge PU )you could try the trick of rolling off much or all of the treble of the bridge PU and blending it with the wide open Neck PU sound to add more mids and for a more complex waveform.
*You also need separate volumes for each PU for this.

I have never liked Guitars to be too Bright or too loud in a mix when soloing and the brighter they are the lower they need to be in the Mix to sound good.( recording or Onstage).IMO.

Almost everyone who plays a Clean Hendrix Rhythm or Clean Lead is too bright for example compared to the original...

But the Bridge PU mixed in sparingly could be useful IMO.

And also as someone said earlier adding the two Pickups together in Series could be useful for fatter fuller sounds organically as opposed to imitating fatter sounds with only treble roll off.

[pingu]

I use the vol off on the bridge pu
and use the switch as a mute

handy

[barrymclark]

I have had instances where I plugged into an unfamiliar amp and the neck position setting just wasn't doing it for me and bringing in the bridge helped considerably. So, sure, there's an advantage depending on how you look at it.

The important thing is can you get what you want out of whatever setup. If it has an extra pickup that you almost never use but still sounds spot on, then cool. That's me though. My amp has several settings I never use but it has a couple that I use with great regularity.

[pingu]

the seminal wes sound is a 2 pickup guitar and he actually did a lot of gigs using the middle position

yeah some of Wes recordings sound like
both PU's on to me

[Robertkoa]

If you only want a Jazz tone or the

Expanded R&B that I am working on .....

You probably want more like a middle PU which can be added to the neck PU in series ( fatter than neck alone ) or parallel ( thinner than neck alone ).

Or be used by itself for transparent type chords and arpeggios ( thinking a narrow field rails single coil warmed over a little , no noise like in Andy Timmons guitar).

They [Guitar Builders] will not do this though on their own , of course.

[Skip Ellis]

That's why I waited to find an ES 165 - if I need a bridge pickup, I have my Tele. Always liked Herb's sound and that guitar does it for me.

[Stefan Eff]

The only use a bridge pickup has is to dampen the top.
]

This is such a BS