Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

[Chistopher]

I am a contractor of sorts for the local luthier in that he calls me up and let's me fiddle around with other people's guitars if they give him an open ended request, I mostly end up just fiddling with magnets and electronic values. The other day he gave me an Epi Plus Top that the owner put a pair of 78s in. He said that the guy wanted a hotter neck tone and possibly a twangier bridge if possible. The fella was in highschool and didn't want to drop more money on new pickups either.

So then I got the idea: switch the neck and bridge a la EVH so that the neck has a higher DCR than the bridge. I also replaced the stock neck A2 with an A3 to keep the bass in check. I considered an A8 in the bridge to match volume if need be, but I could get the outputs of the two pickups to match with height tweaking.

I must say that it worked pretty well. The neck felt hotter than the bridge and the bridge had a decent twang to it. A lot of the reason that people underwind neck pickups is so that the bass doesn't get boomy, not to increase treble. It also didn't have the EQ gap that sets such as the 490R and 498T have. The owner seemed to like it, and the luthier too.

EVH brand guitars do this for most all of their models, so why doesn't SD have a set that's like this? It's a cool idea if it's done well, usually involving a thinner guage wire for the neck pickup. I've also seen it being done more and more with boutique brands, but nothing from DMZ or SD.

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

Duncans can do it, you just need to buy both pickups separately if you choose to go that route. It's no different from purchasing one of the many Duncan pickups that don't come in sets at all anyway.

I think Duncan markets sets to more "traditional" buyers who want a tried/true combo, not to someone who wants to experiment with something less conventional.

On one hand I get it; people like soloing high up on the neck using the neck pickup and getting that really round, fat sound where it makes sense to have a higher output neck. At the same time people often want a bridge pickup to be more clucky/surfy. But I think most players rely on the neck pickup more to give a solid clean tone vs. the heavier bridge.

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

I think that the fat neck/skinny bridge pickup is sort of a niche thing, to be honest. The guys that want that sort of thing have a basic idea of what it takes in their minds already, so prepackaged sets that cater to this may A: not bw economically advantageous; and B: may not include the pickups that these cats want.

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

I think that the fat neck/skinny bridge pickup is sort of a niche thing, to be honest. The guys that want that sort of thing have a basic idea of what it takes in their minds already, so prepackaged sets that cater to this may A: not bw economically advantageous; and B: may not include the pickups that these cats want.

A good way to get around this would be to release a set with three "heat" levels. Kind of like the Burstbuckers. They were actually the first set I tried this with, but it didn't work given that BBs aren't the best pickups for this application in the first place.

 

[Returned]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

I usually wire my HH guitars, in which I favor a hot neck and a hotter bridge, so that just the bridge can be split resulting in a combo tone like the above would give.

A strat with the right 12k neck pickup can fake an archtop all day long. Just don't play it like you are Hendrix or SRV. Haters gonna hate but it works, the key is the RIGHT 12k. I use a standard Norton personally.

I'm not a fiddly fiddly solo player either.

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

A good way to get around this would be to release a set with three "heat" levels. Kind of like the Burstbuckers. They were actually the first set I tried this with, but it didn't work given that BBs aren't the best pickups for this application in the first place.

Another option would be to include a blurb on the description found on the website. Something like "pairs well as a neck pickup with the Custom and Distortion".

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

I usually wire my HH guitars, in which I favor a hot neck and a hotter bridge, so that just the bridge can be split resulting in a combo tone like the above would give.

A strat with the right 12k neck pickup can fake an archtop all day long. Just don't play it like you are Hendrix or SRV. Haters gonna hate but it works, the key is the RIGHT 12k. I use a standard Norton personally.

I'm not a fiddly fiddly solo player either.

I did something similar with an ash tele for a while. I had a PGb in the neck with a tapped STL-2 in the bridge. I would split the neck and tap the bridge for a traditional tone and use the full on sounds with gain or for fat, jazzy sounds.

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

Come to think of it, standard Teles use this same system, hotter neck, cooler bridge. But then again, the construction is so far off that the DCR doesn't really matter at that point.

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

Right; Teles don't have a hotter neck. More DCR in the neck, but the bridge is typically still greater output.

Now a lot of people put humbuckers in the neck...

 

[AlexR]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

Most people complain about hotter woolier neck pickups and anemic bridge pickups, and buy stronger bridge pickups. Have done since the 70's when the aftermarket pickup business started.....so there is no trend in existence to follow in the first place.

 

[superpete]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

i've never liked the neck pickup tone in my mm axis. i do like a hot neck pu, but never hotter than the bridge.

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

Most people complain about hotter woolier neck pickups and anemic bridge pickups, and buy stronger bridge pickups. Have done since the 70's when the aftermarket pickup business started.....so there is no trend in existence to follow in the first place.

I'm not talking about simply overwinding the neck pickup, that would be a mess. I'm talking about pickups that are overwound with at least one mechanic to get rid of the overbearing bass. Like the specs on the EVH Wolfgang pickups:

Wolfgang Bridge PU
14K – 14.6K DC resistance
Alnico 2 magnet
#43 polysol winding

Wolfgang Neck PU
16.4K – 17K DC resistance
Alnico 2 magnet
#44 polysol winding

The wind among the two is different, so while the neck gives the impression of being "hotter" it doesn't have the boomy bass that traditionally steers people away from hot neck pickups.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

Well, people have been modding teles by putting neck humbuckers in...for decades. They are still after a tonal change, not as much as a power change. A tele bridge pickup, though less powerful than a neck humbucker, can cut through a pretty dense band.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

Well, the whole scooped weak neck pickup with a hot mid-focused bridge pickup approach ala JB/Jazz is totally not my thing, personally.

 

[Demanic]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

IWell, the whole scooped weak neck pickup with a hot mid-focused bridge pickup approach ala JB/Jazz is totally not my thing, personally.

I have a JB paired with a neck pickup that measures about 8.5k with an A5 magnet. I think that they pair well together. I have another guitar with an Alternative 8 paired with a Distortion neck, which is about 12.5k, with an RCA4. Once again I think that they are a good match.

Sent from my Alcatel_5044C using Tapatalk

 

[jeremy]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

hotter wind with weaker magnet can work great. theres a lot of different people out there who have different ideas of whats good. if they have the money, they can get anything their heart desires

 

[AlexR]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

I'm not talking about simply overwinding the neck pickup, that would be a mess. I'm talking about pickups that are overwound with at least one mechanic to get rid of the overbearing bass. Like the specs on the EVH Wolfgang pickups:

Wolfgang Bridge PU
14K – 14.6K DC resistance
Alnico 2 magnet
#43 polysol winding

Wolfgang Neck PU
16.4K – 17K DC resistance
Alnico 2 magnet
#44 polysol winding

The wind among the two is different, so while the neck gives the impression of being "hotter" it doesn't have the boomy bass that traditionally steers people away from hot neck pickups.

So the wolfgang is not really part of this 'hotter neck pickup' thing at all then. Both of those will come out about the same once you take the wire gauge into account. And actually the neck pickup is more likely to produce mud......44 gauge will produce less overall high end than 43 all things being equal (not that they really can)

I mean how are you defining 'hot'......some misleading DCR spec seems to be your thing, which is of course misleading.
The wolfgang example has 2 pickups of about the same turns, taking out the gauge difference. This of course gives you a hotter signal unless you adjust volume or change height. Maybe there was a specific wind element tweaked so that it sounded great backed WAY off the strings.

But you can adjust any pickup (even a weaker wind) in the neck way close to the strings and have it produce more signal of course. So in that way it can be hotter in terms of output. But I don't know of many (again) wanting a mismatch that way.
But neck pickups have to fight the mud, and generally the way to do it is with thicker wire, not thinner like the Wolfgang.

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

You can adjust any pickup in the neck way close to the strings and have it produce more signal of course. So in that way it can be hotter in terms of output. But I don't know of many (again) wanting a mismatch that way.

I'm not talking about heat as in volume, I'm talking about a warm treble with upper midrange sear. More signal tends to come along with this, but that is not the goal of putting more wire on the pickup.

The neck Wolfgang also has more scatter in the windings so that the lower mids/ bass don't become muddy.

 

['59]

Re: Is the "hotter neck pickup" trend catching on?

I enjoy a hot neck pickup. I have a 24 fret Ibanez RG with a JB in both the neck and bridge that I lust after. The owner actually got the neck JB overwound on one coil. This means the neck still sounds like a JB, still sounds like a neck humbucker, and also retains the sear that was mentioned above. It's also not overly thick either.

It does however have PTB wiring (passive treble bass) so that if he wants to get a thinner sound for a smooth jazzy neck tone, he can roll of the low end, but even without it he pulls an amazing neck tone from it.