Can you get by with a single bridge humbucker?

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skullfxr

skullfxr

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I have a ton of guitars, I recently took out my pair of Fender MIK Showmasters which are single humbucker guitars. I have an EMG 81 in both. As much as I love those guitars I feel severely limited due to the fact that they just have the bridge pickup. Rhythm guitar is fine, it's just the lead playing that I feel is holding me up. Too much treble. I can't roll the volume back, because I lose the edge.

This, I am inquiring if any of you feel the same way.
 
i live on the bridge pickup. if i have a guitar that seems overly bright i will hard wire a tone circuit that gets the tone i want. once i get the lead tone the way i like the rest of the tones seem to fall in place. and i do everything from hard rock to country gigs, always just using the bridge pup. it actually seems easier to dial in tones when im not switching pups. thats probably cause of the amps and pedals i use so that may not work for all rigs.
 
I know I couldn't. Bridge cleans sound terrible to me 90% of the time, way too bright regardless of pickup...YMMV! Some guys are all gain all the time, so I can see why the neck PU wouldn't be a huge issue for them, but I'd feel limited personally!
 
I cannot get by with just a single bridge pickup. I have seen some really cool guitars with only a bridge pickup and it's a 100% show stopper for me.

When I was younger, I'd spend almost 100% of my time on the bridge, but looking back I think mainly because I had cheap, weak, crappy sounding neck pickups.
 
5 of my 7 guitars are single bridge humbucker equipped. For leads I hit a phase or wah on those guitars.

For true neck pickup tones, I got with my Brazillian burst Dean ML. For middle pickup tones I go with my Buddy Blaze Dean ML.
 
Nope, gotta have a neck pickup for leads.

Also, almost all of my rhythm playing uses a combination of the bridge and neck (out of phase to each other). I really dig that phased sound lately.
 
I never used a neck pick-up or tone knob until I was 47 years old and had to start playing classic rock instead of metal. When I practice at home, I play metal and the music I write is metal but I don't have an audience for my music or metal music.
I was asked to fill in this weekend for a Blues band and I asked if they wanted me to learn their songs and have a practice and they said no, "it's just the blues". I filled in before for this band and no one gives a crap as long as the singer is looking the part and I under-play (no showboating).
 
Doesn't work for me. For cleans I mostly use a neck humbucker combined with a middle single-coil and ride the guitar's volume knob. Whenever I try to play clean through a bridge humbucker, even if it's split or combined with a middle single-coil, there's a honk to the sound that I just can't gel with. And let us not forget that fluid & juicy neck humbucker lead tone when combined with high-gain.
 
Yup. BC Rich Gunslinger x2 (ebony, nitro orange) and LP Jr. ;)
 
All of my custom stuff are single pickup guitars.









 
I hate neck humbuckers. I really only use middle/neck positions on single coil guitars.
 
I never looked at the neck pickup as a pickup for solos but I guess it is. Not saying that I didn't use it for that but it was rare. Almost all of my playing is on the bridge but as others have mentioned, I like having a neck pickup for clean stuff.
 
i love having limits which in turn makes me simplify things.

the beauty of just having one humbucker is that you can dial in the amp easier.

evh was right about how you can get a great tone dialed in for the bridge and then when you flip to the neck pup it gets muddy - i concur
without using a graphic eq in the front or in a loop or channel switching i find it's really hard to get 2 pickups sounding "right"thru the same channel on any amp.

furthermore allan holdsworth believed that the neck pup had a magnetic "string pull' effect on the bridge pup when it wasn't being used and fucked up the tone and decreased output and played games with polarity. I tend to believe what dude said as his tome was incredible thru out his career.

i have one guitar with just a humbucker and it has provided me with a consistently perfect recorded tone for a long time and many engineers have commented on how well it cuts in a track.

it was something i didn't even notice until i started recording tracks with other guitars with a neck pup and in the context of an album it became clear that the single humbucker guitar sounded better in a mix

who knows? maybe the wood of the guitar has an effect as well
ymmv!
 
Love your guitars Rotting Corpse, especially that cracked mirror!

:2thumbsup:
 
Tronald Dump":m3qu04sg said:
Love your guitars Rotting Corpse, especially that cracked mirror!

:2thumbsup:
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Most definitely.

This is a wide range of responses. Cool!

I don't get along with neck singles a whole lot for cleans for heavier music, but for blues, that is where it is at for me.
 
controlled_voltage":f9stp5x2 said:
i

furthermore allan holdsworth believed that the neck pup had a magnetic "string pull' effect on the bridge pup when it wasn't being used and fucked up the tone and decreased output and played games with polarity. I tend to believe what dude said as his tome was incredible thru out his career.
Click to expand...

Phil X believes the same thing. He pulls the neck pup out and shoves goofy stuff in the hole!
 
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