whats the diffenence neck vs. bridge

dusklose

New member
so what exactly is the difference between a neck pickup and a bridge pickup, does the neck have more wire around it? i guess i just dont know the difference. also...approx how many times is the wire wrapped around the pickup?
 
Re: whats the diffenence neck vs. bridge

You should have done a search - millions of other people have asked the same thing.

The strings vibrate less at the bridge, so bridge pickups are generally hotter.

A vintage type PAF has about 5000 turns of wire for each bobbin. There are 2 bobbins, ovbiousley.
 
Re: whats the diffenence neck vs. bridge

Because most pickup buyers don't have a lot of technical knowledge about pickups, most pickup makers (Duncan included) will tell you which of their pickups are designed for the bridge position and which for the neck.

The rule of thumb is there are fewer turns of wire on neck position pickups because they don't need nearly as much 'power' as a bridge pickup does for the reasons given above by Modest Cargo. The bridge pickup is almost always stronger so it can magnify those tiny vibrations near the bridge to balance its output (loudness) with that of the neck pickup.

In vintage output pickups, there is less difference in the number of turns between neck and bridge models than with more modern sound pickups. In some cases, like Gibson's 57 Classics, there is no difference at all, they are interchangeable. The more modern, hot bridge pickups are often close to twice the DC resistance of modern or vintage neck pickups. Check out the Duncan Tone Chart and you can see these differences for yourself.

Then there is the choice magnet which also heavily influences how powerful a pickup is...
 
Re: whats the diffenence neck vs. bridge

back in the old days (50's, 60's even 70's) there wasnt calibrated pups for different positions, ex. gibson wound a pile of pups and those would go into guitars with little or no consideration to matching. all the pups were supposed to be the same.
so while most modern strat guitars have a higher output bridge pup to compensate for the lack of string movement giving a fatter tone, in the old days the 6k pup that fender put in all positions lead to many people thinking of a strats bridge pup as being very thin or shrill which is not always the case and certainly doesnt have to be
 
Re: whats the diffenence neck vs. bridge

Yeah.

I use an Alnico 2 in the neck and an Alnico 5 in the bridge. The 5 gives a more powerful, snappier tone, and the anico 2 is less poweful and is warm with a spongy low end.
 
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