How do I utilize my full pickups ability??

[NabilFitriMusic]

Hey softies,
i own a strat and I would like to know when do i select diff pickups(neck/mid/bridge)
is there a specific type that i must use when playing lead/rhythm???

thanks

 

[Likui]

don't have, what u do is u listen to the sound and use what's best to your ears. For me I never use mid pickup lol. Most of the time I will use bridge pickup for rhythm and neck pickup when i do sweep picking.

 

[bf0502tr]

depending on what type of pickups u have, many ppl use them differently. i got a rail in my strat bridge and i use it exclusively for heavier rhythms that include power chords cos of its thickness. my neck and bridge are humless SCs and i use the neck for solos and chording. i rarely if ever use the mid pickup alone, most of the time its with the neck or the bridge and used for simulating acoustic tones when strumming or playing funk. hope this helps

 

[ankursamtaney]

Never played a real (Fender) strat.. in fact quite dislike strats personally (sorry! ).. but from playing Ibanez's, Les Pauls and other guitars, the conclusion I've drawn based on a lot of listening and reading is that the neck pickup gives you thick, fat, chunky low-mid-heavy sound which is very useful for rhythm and barre / power chords. The bridge pickup on the other hand, is a more treble-heavy tone, that could come in handy when shredding higher up on the neck, doing pinch harmonic bends / squeals, etc.

Then again, you could also very well use the neck pick up for similar stuff, but it will give you a very different sound and feel, which you can't always realise while you're playing but if you record it and listen back, the change may just be more prominent.

I've noticed that if you use your neck pickup for leads higher up, and just switch to the bridge pickup for a few high bends or licks and then switch back to the neck pick up, it adds great tonal character and variation to your leed.

Apart from all this -- remember that your volume and tone knobs are your friends! While the thought of meddling with them during a song might seem difficult and unnecessary to most beginners, slight tweaks here and there can make a world of difference to the feel, tone and your performance. The volume knob, depending on your pedal chain, amp, and style of playing, could double up as a sort of a gain / drive control and make a remarkable difference to your tone without touching your amp or pedals. For instance, if you're using normal distortion (not too much of it like a rectifier!), you can pull down the volume a few notches to get a nice clean, moderate overdrive tone which can sound amazing if you do it right.

So yea, just play around.. see how each pickup responds with different volume / tone settings and figure out what works best for you.

 

[isuxs]

THANKS GUYS.
been twitching the pickup selector for so many years.now,i roughly gt a clue on why and what am i doing.thanks again.

 

[bf0502tr]

Never played a real (Fender) strat.. in fact quite dislike strats personally (sorry! ).. but from playing Ibanez's, Les Pauls and other guitars, the conclusion I've drawn based on a lot of listening and reading is that the neck pickup gives you thick, fat, chunky low-mid-heavy sound which is very useful for rhythm and barre / power chords. The neck pickup on the other hand, is a more treble-heavy tone, that could come in handy when shredding higher up on the neck, doing pinch harmonic bends / squeals, etc.

erm which is which?? ure gonna confuse the TS into thinking ur guitar got 2 neck pickup lol. anyway i think the neck pickup for a standard matched set of humbuckers will not get more chunky than the bridge. well at least thats how i interpret the sound. and the bridge pickup being not as fat as the neck really has to do with what pickup u put in the bridge. btw...in case u didnt know, the neck pickup of a standard strat isnt fat at all...its really quite the opposite lol. its thin and it sings, unlike a humbucker which is thick and punches.

 

[J.custom]

For a strat, bridge pup would definitely be for rhythm stuff and lead, but watch out for the treble. I would use positions 2 and 4 for the funky-er stuff ie. John Mayer- Belief and gravity.

Middle pup can be used for rhythm ocassionally to add some 'trebliness' to your rhythm sound which you cant get in the bridge pup, that one you have to experiment to see whether you like. If i'm playing clean, I would use it for spreading out chords, arppegios ie. Mr Big- Promise Her the Moon.

Neck pickup can be used either for rhythm or lead as well. A good example of using the neck pickup for rhythm would be John Mayer- Good Love is on the Way or Who do you think i was. Andy Timmons uses it quite well for some single note stuff as well, check out Electric Gypsy and Resolution.

*Talking about all single coils here
**Correct me if I'm wrong about any parts.

 

[ankursamtaney]

erm which is which?? ure gonna confuse the TS into thinking ur guitar got 2 neck pickup lol.

Sorry! My bad! Edited the post

in case u didnt know, the neck pickup of a standard strat isnt fat at all...its really quite the opposite lol. its thin and it sings, unlike a humbucker which is thick and punches.

To be honest, like I said, I'm not absolutely sure about strats.. but my general impression has been that you tend to get more low-end on the neck pickup, and a more trebel-ly tone on the bridge pickup. Somehow I imagined that was more to do with the positioning than to do with the pickup itself, but yea, I'm no expert with this. What I say is out of the little experience I have with the guitars that I play / have played.

And yes, most guitars I play tend to have humbuckers, although my JS100 does have a push pull pot to give me a single coil variation.

Thanks for sorting out any confusion I may have caused, though.

 

[bf0502tr]

yea actually its the positioning that makes the pickup sound a certain way. of course the pickup's characteristics also play a part but the so does the positioning. actually there's no diff whether its a SC or a HB. both will react accordingly when the position is changed from neck to bridge. just that each will retain their individual characteristics.

 

[Jumpin'Jellybean]

I use a single pickup guitar (heavy modded Epi LP Jr) and it has more tones than i need... I use the pickup for all kinds of different tones. My strats are backups (hehe) but tbh, i use the bridge or bridge+mid on my strat as rhythm. And lead use bridge as well. But ymmv, good luck experimenting.