Why is a bridge humbucker always brighter than a neck humbucker?

[Hotrod Lincoln]

Is it because it's closer to the bridge?

Is it because it's usually higher inductance?

Combination of the two?

 

 

I'm wondering how you could get a brighter ACDC type of crunch out of a neck pickup position on a 72' Tele Custom.

[milosch]

The strings vibrate less off-center so that bass response is naturally cut compared to the neck position. Er, something like that.

[Hotrod Lincoln]

 

The strings vibrate less off-center so that bass response is naturally cut compared to the neck position. Er, something like that.

 

 

so if that's the case, then a higher inductance neck pickup will cause less string virbation due to a stronger magnetic pull and will be brighter

[milosch]

I don't expect that the pickups have much impact on the vibration of the string, regardless of the magnetic material used. With the pickup, we're just sampling the audio frequency vibration of the string. It is the string that creates electricity in the coils of the pickup due to the proximity and movement. Higher inductance, all other things being equal, would mean more coil wire hence higher resistance and lower current. I'm not a physicist nor pickup winder, so I can't be sure about the frequency response effect. Coil construction, e.g. winding pattern might also have impact on the enhancement and cancellation of harmonics as desired. You could also just run through an e.q. and take out the bass and pump up the treble

[Hotrod Lincoln]

You could also just run through an e.q. and take out the bass and pump up the treble

 

Stop trying to make this simple!!

[ashasha]

If you take the two exact same pickups and put one in the neck and one in the bridge, the bridge will always sound brighter because of the location.

 

To do what I think you area asking could probably be helped by changing a pickup, maybe cranking the treble side of the pickup a touch, but it's not going to sound just like a bridge pickup.

 

One other thing that may help would be to change the volume pot to something like 1M. Supposedly that helps to make pickups sound brighter.

[PlinytheWelder]

The strings vibrate with more harmonics near the bridge, so that's what you get...

[WRGKMC]

To keep the signal balance even when selecting between the two, the bridge pickup is usually wound a littel hotter and has a higer impediance then the neck.

 

As far as vibration goes. The string moves the most at the 12th fret when plucked and the least at the nut and bridge. Anyone whose studied magnitism and how electricity is generated, knows when you pass a magnet through a coil of wire, it generats a voltage, the faster you push the magnet through, the larger the voltage. With a string suspended over the magnetic coil, a small movement generats a weak signal and a large movement generats a strong one.

 

Next, Since theres more unimpeeded movement at the center of the string, it generats the longest wave and the most bass qualities. Its where the fundamental note occurs. Anywhere else on the string you have higher overtones occuring. You also get more metalic sound from the bridge itself being metal and the highest overtones.

 

As you move up the neck, the frets get shorter and the pitch gets higher, and theres a shorter distance between overtones. This shortening of distance between the frets/overtones continues past the end of the neck so the space above the bridge pickup may contain several overtones within pickup distance of the pickup in comparison to the neck that may only have one.

 

Imagine the neck continuing all the way up to the bridge, the space between the frets shrink into infinity.

 

Impediance can also affect the tone of a pickup, but it has nothing to do with what you think. As you wind a pickup with more wire, the signal gets stronger, but theres a tradeoff of both low and high frequency losses. This can be factored in to a small extent when having a hotter bridge pup that has a bit of high frequency attenuation, and vice versa, having a lower impediance neck inpediance will make the neck brighter.

 

So having a higer impediance neck pickup not only even up the difference in signal strength caused by differences in string movement magnitude, it also evens up the brightness of the two pickups so the neck isnt overly basy and the bridge overly shrill.

 

You could say the bridge is EQed to cut trebble/bass and to have more output vs the neck. and the neck is EQed to have more trebble/bass and have a weaker output.

[notjonahbutnoah]

The pickups themselves are usually EQ'd to the opposite of your description.

 

If you have a model of pickup where there exists a neck and bridge version, the neck will usually be made to sound a touch thinner than the bridge to alleviate some of the boominess that comes with that position.

 

Perhaps it's the bridge pickup that gets wound beefier than the neck to make up for the more trebly tone associated with the bridge... however you wanna look at it.

 

Either way, it is the location of the pickup.

[rll]

I think it's because the string is moving in a shorter path over the bridge pickup. The center of your string travels the furthest when you pluck it. The closer to the bridge you get the shorter the distance the string has to travel through the oscillation.

[WRGKMC]

A littel more food got thought. Ever mess with a tin can telephone as a kid? With a short string the trebble responce was better, with a long string the trebble dissapears. Thats Kind of the same thing with the pickups listening position on a strings until you reach the center which is the maximum distance from either end of the string.

[sk8centilli]

I was waiting for Wyatt, but WRGKMC came to the rescue first!

[Armitage]

Pick your string near the 12th fret, then pick it real close to your bridge, you should be able to figure that out by yourself now.

[flummox]

Physics aside, you're not going to get anywhere near AC/DC on a Fender Wide Range at the neck.