Would a neck pickup work in a bridge?

[mesa/boogieman]

How would it affect the sound of the guitar if I put a neck pickup in the bridge? I found a decent deal on a Strat pickup but it's for the neck and I would like it in the bridge for a hotter tone in the bridge.

 

[bettset]

neil young & ry cooder use pedal steel pickups in their guitars......so why not

 

[tim gueguen]

In the "good old days" the guitar companies generally didn't differentiate between neck and bridge pickups, although there were exceptions like the Telecaster. Instead you'd wind a bunch of say Strat pickups, and the guy or gal who installed the pickups would pick them out of a box at random.

 

[Stratoben127]

neil young & ry cooder use pedal steel pickups in their guitars......so why not

If you're referring to the bridge pickup in Neil's Old Black LP, that's from a '65 Firebird.

 

[fumbler]

. . . I would like it in the bridge for a hotter tone in the bridge.

This makes no sense. Pickups that are designed for the neck position tend to be LOWER output than pickups designed for the bridge. This is to compensate for the fact that the strings move less near the bridge.

 

[mesa/boogieman]

This makes no sense. Pickups that are designed for the neck position tend to be LOWER output than pickups designed for the bridge. This is to compensate for the fact that the strings move less near the bridge.

Well it's a hotter-wound pickup so I thought it might work in the bridge and give a hotter tone than the stock Strat pickup

 

[mike shaw]

Makes sense to me!

 

[Dinosaur Sr.]

It should work fine. Some strats have a reverse-wound middle pickup to eliminate hum, and some folks might put a hotter wound pickup in the bridge (like you are doing), but other than that there's generally no difference between the pickups in the strat positions. In a "standard" vintage strat all 3 pickups were the same exact part like the poster mentioned above. If you take a neck pickup out of a set where all 3 are wound hot, it should be just a hot pickup & will work fine in the bridge. What pickup is it exactly?

 

[omfg51]

Seems legit to me. Honestly, it might not be a bad way to achieve the tone you're looking for. Experimenting can often lead to incredibly pleasing discoveries.

 

[sahhas]

in my old kramer pacer i had a neck position early 80s gibsons humbucker in the bridge. it was fine.

 

[leonard d rock]

its a good idea. try it and report back here, of course

 

[mesa/boogieman]

It should work fine. Some strats have a reverse-wound middle pickup to eliminate hum, and some folks might put a hotter wound pickup in the bridge (like you are doing), but other than that there's generally no difference between the pickups in the strat positions. In a "standard" vintage strat all 3 pickups were the same exact part like the poster mentioned above. If you take a neck pickup out of a set where all 3 are wound hot, it should be just a hot pickup & will work fine in the bridge. What pickup is it exactly?

It's a tex mex pickup. I always liked the way they sound.

 

[shane8]

fwiw i put the neck pu of my pv wolfs in the bridge + put the br pu in a drawer & yes they do sound different cos they're different winds

 

[Koop]

My Strat has Dimarzio Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues 2 pick ups in all three positions. They sound different from each other due to the fact that they're picking up the string vibration at different locations and they're set to different heights. Use whatever you want, experiment and you might find the tone that currently exists only in your head.

 

[Gearaddict]

This makes no sense. Pickups that are designed for the neck position tend to be LOWER output than pickups designed for the bridge. This is to compensate for the fact that the strings move less near the bridge.

THIS

On most my two pickup guitars the neck ALWAYS sounds fuller and hotter than the bridge, no matter how hot the bridge is. It's called "string vibration". Soooooo, if you put the neck pickup in the bridge position, you are going to get an even weaker sound.

 

[fumbler]

It's a tex mex pickup. I always liked the way they sound.

See the specs here.

The TexMex NECK pickup is 6.4k. The resistance doesn't tell you everything, of course, but that doesn't sound like a high-output pickup to me. You can certainly compensate with pickup height but since you said you wanted a "hotter tone in the bridge" I don't think this will get you there.

And what are the other pickups in the guitar?

 

[kleydj13]

It depends entirely on the output of the existing pickups compared to the output of this neck pickup in question. Most modern pickup builders offer bridge pickups that are about 10% hotter in order to make up for the restricted string vibration near the bridge.

If your stock pickups are of a more vintage output and the tex mex is wound hotter it should be a good fit. Typically though you aren't going to want to do this. I would say give it a shot.

 

[dspellman]

There's no problem with this at all. Until about 1980, neck and bridge pickups were the same pickup on production guitars. When "hot" pickups showed up, these usually found their way into the bridge position. But there's nothing that says you can't use a hot neck pickup for the bridge position (and vice-versa -- I have a very hot strat bridge pickup in the neck position of an LP).

 

[AudioEcstasy]

I would certainly try it! I've had some great discoveries when it comes to pup swapping. Sounds to me like the whole neck/bridge differentiation is all marketing...

 

[Agramal]

There's actually a fairly sizable camp of people who use the EMG 85 in the bridges of their guitars. I have mine in the bridge of an Ibanez RG550; sounds great. Biggest proponent of this is Kurt Ballou from Converge, who has installed 85s in basically every guitar he plays.