Does flipping / reverse mounting, your pick up make a tonal difference ?

[SirJackdeFuzz II]

Quick question :

Something i always wondered about.

Will you hear a difference when you flip your bridge pick up ?
In other words, taking said bridge unit and re-mount it ''up side down'', so that your screw pole pieces are no longer close-set to the bridge & saddle, but are now further away from it.

 

[Sambuccashake]

I think it depends on the pickup design.

For example, there are a lot of discussions on the preferred installation orientation of the something like the Dimarzio Crunch Lab and there is no doubt that it sounds different whether you have the pole pieces or solid bar towards the bridge.

But if it's the same for a regular humbucker?
Hmmm if any difference at all I would guess it is very slight.

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Pups with mismatched coils will also yield differences depending on orientation, like the 59/Custom, where one coil is 42awg at 4k and the other 43awg at 7k.

 

[ErikH]

At the bridge, I don't know if there would be much of a difference or not. String vibration is different there than closer to the neck. IME, flipping the neck pickup does make a different, a little brighter sound with the screw coils towards the bridge. I've done it with many neck pickups from '57 Classics, to Air Classics to the Screamin' Demon.

 

[Aceman]

Sometimes. Depends on the pickup and the position.

Usually easy enough to do (unless someone was stingy with the wire). Experiment a little.

I messed around a little with this but never felt compelled to do it permanently.

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Talking specifically about humbucker pups where one coil has Screws and one coil has Slugs: i haven't heard a difference when the pup is not coilsplit. But when the pup is coilsplit, i hear a difference btw the 2 coil types. To my ears, Slug coils are slightly louder, hotter, warmer and thicker compared to Screw coils. The difference I describing is not glaring, it's subtle. I personally prefer coilspltting to the Screw coil.

[Edit]: however, i have also found position of the coil to be a larger factor in how that coilsplit sounds overall. For example, while i typically rotate the Neck pickup so i don't have to flip the magnet to get hum-canceling coil split combos of Both Inners and Both Outers - which puts the slug coil of the neck in the Outer position -i typically prefer that Outer coil of a neck humbucker as the one to use when split by itself in the Neck, over the Inner coil of the Neck. Even though that Outer Coil is a slug. Demonstrating Coil Position generally trumps Coil Type.

So reconciling my first statement of preferenxe against the 2nd one: i wish humbucker pickups were made with both coils on it as Screws.

 

[Mincer]

Talking specifically about humbucker pups where one coil has Screws and one coil has Slugs: i haven't heard a difference when the pup is not coilsplit. But when the pup is coilsplit, i hear a difference btw the 2 coil types. To my ears, Slug coils are slightly louder, hotter, warmer and thicker compared to Screw coils. The difference I describing is not glaring, it's subtle. I personally prefer coilspltting to the Screw coil.
.

This is exactly what I hear. With a full, balanced-coil humbucker, I can't hear a difference if it is flipped 180º.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

i wish humbucker pickups were made with both coils on it as Screws.

Some are, you know - like the Allan Holdsworth model, a double screw SH-1 (Older sets had a double screw JB at the bridge).

Quite a few have hex screws on both coils too.

PS: Absolutely agree that position relative to the bridge is more important tonewise than slug vs screw. Except for models with coil offset, as mentioned. Most Duncans are symmetrical wind AFAIK, but many DiMarzios are not.

 

[Mincer]

I had a Custom Shop 59/Custom made with double screws, and a roughcast A5.

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Some are, you know - like the Allan Holdsworth model, a double screw SH-1 (Older sets had a double screw JB at the bridge).

Quite a few have hex screws on both coils too.

PS: Absolutely agree that position relative to the bridge is more important tonewise than slug vs screw. Except for models with coil offset, as mentioned. Most Duncans are symmetrical wind AFAIK, but many DiMarzios are not.

Thanks, I was aware of the Holdsworth. It's just that that pup is too hot for my tastes. Its like 14 or 15k. Whereas I like vintage PAF'ish level of hot for a humbucker

But also, being able to name 1 pup where both coils as Screws -or maybe a 2nd like the GFS Dream 180 - sort of misses my earlier point, which was that i wish there a LOT of choices in the aftermarket for 2 screw coil pups. I don't see any advantage tonewise of a slug type coil over a screw coil. If given the choice, i would always buy a 2 screw humbucker over a 1 screw 1 slug humbucker.

Hex type screws, in my opinion, produce a different type of sound than filister type screws. And none of the pups i found featuring dual hex coils, are voiced like vintage PAFs

 

[Chistopher]

Flipping a pickup falls in a very specific subset of mods. They each make damn near no discernable difference on their own, but compound to turn a good instrument into a great one.

The best comparison I have is it's like going to the eye doctor and they put you in the machine with different lenses and keep saying "1 or 2?". There's almost no difference between the individual lenses, but in the end it's considerably clearer than it was in the beginning. Neither 1 nor 2 is right or wrong, but they add up to produce a good effect if you use them properly in tandem.

That being said, why spend all this time trying to optimize a single instrument when you could be spending it optimizing your playing? If you think a pickup is going to tighten your leads for example, imagine how impressed with yourself you would be if you spent the time you would have modding your guitar working on your hand synchronization or picking dynamics.

 

[SirJackdeFuzz II]

Sometimes. Depends on the pickup and the position.

Usually easy enough to do (unless someone was stingy with the wire). Experiment a little.

I messed around a little with this but never felt compelled to do it permanently.

I am thinking about an SD A2P and SD 59 'buckers.

 

[Aceman]

I am thinking about an SD A2P and SD 59 'buckers.

I have flipped a 59 before. Meh.


Full disclose: In the neck of a Les Paul

 

[BluesIsBlood12]

I think in theory it should, but there was no noticeable difference when I flipped a few neck HBs. Perhaps if you did before/after recording and analyzed each track you could probably find some difference, but, as with most things we like to nitpick here, in a full band setting I doubt anyone would ever notice the difference.

 

[ErikH]

Some are, you know - like the Allan Holdsworth model, a double screw SH-1 (Older sets had a double screw JB at the bridge).

Quite a few have hex screws on both coils too.

PS: Absolutely agree that position relative to the bridge is more important tonewise than slug vs screw. Except for models with coil offset, as mentioned. Most Duncans are symmetrical wind AFAIK, but many DiMarzios are not.

I was thinking of the Holdsworth model as well. It's actually closer to a double screw SH-4. Jake E. Lee used it throughout the 80's in his white Charvelized Strat.

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

I don't see any advantage tonewise of a slug type coil over a screw coil.

Actually, i'll have to take that statement back. The stock humbucker on the HSS Squier Strat that I acquired a few months is a double slug. And that thing excelled at beefy thrash tones. The only reason I removed it is i wanted to set that Strat up with pickups voiced for traditional Strat tones.

 

[Clint 55]

Ime it rounds it out a bit to flip a bridge hb so the screws are farther away from the bridge.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

I was thinking of the Holdsworth model as well. It's actually closer to a double screw SH-4. Jake E. Lee used it throughout the 80's in his white Charvelized Strat.

The early AH bridge was a JB with two screw coils; that one is also known as the Metal Fatigue.
Later on Allan wanted something less firebreathing, and changed the AH1B to a double screw 59B.
Confusing to have two pickups so completely different yet with the same model number.
AH1N has always been a double screw 59N I think.

 

[Mincer]

AH always loved double screw pickups, and I am sure he had plenty of custom-wound pickups from Seymour himself. Allan went through gear relentlessly, never staying with anything too long. He was famously never satisfied with anything.