Poll: How do you use your pickup selector?

How do you use your pickup selector?

  • Rarely. I mostly use one pickup.

  • I select a position for a song and stick with it to the end.

  • One position for lead, one for rhythm.

  • As many positions as a song calls for.

  • I avoid this issue by playing one pickup guitars.

Results are only viewable after voting.
Biddlin said:
I paid for all the positions and I use 'em! I play a lot of OD leads on the neck with the tone at 1 or 2 and then switch to the bridge at 10/10 when I want pinch harmonics.
2843d1457023171t-n225-quality-dscn0060sm-jpg


My N-225 is usually in the middle spot with no coil-split.
Click to expand...

that N-225 gives me a RISE in my LEVIS every time you post the pic........what a dead sexy bitch that is
 
I mainly use the bridge pickup because with higher gain tones the neck pickup sounds like ass when you get onto the lower frets and strings. I use the neck pickup on the high frets and strings and for the occasional clean intro or interlude.
 
For how and what I play, I find the middle position on my G400 is my favorite. Bridge is just a bit too bright. Neck a bit dark. So I crank the bridge and run the neck around 3-4. Makes my ears happy.
 
There's been a time or two I used the middle position. But on a few songs I recorded I switched pickups mid solo a few times, i try to do it sparingly. I play with my tone a lot so I don't dedicate a pickup to a certain roll. It just depends on what tone I'm going for.
 
I use the switch all the time. I have my humbucker SGs set up with the Peter Green magnet flip, to get that nice middle position honk. I switch back and forth during solos to create different "textures" in the sound. I also use the volume controls quite a bit to add or turn down gain. It's nice to have a wide sonic palette.

I really only started doing this the last couple of years, though. Used to use either the bridge or the neck, never the middle. And the volume was either off or on 10. I definitely got by that way, but I'm having more fun now.
 
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Gahr said:
I use the switch all the time. I have my humbucker SGs set up with the Peter Green magnet flip, to get that nice middle position honk. I switch back and forth during solos to create different "textures" in the sound. I also use the volume controls quite a bit to add or turn down gain. It's nice to have a wide sonic palette.

I really only started doing this the last couple of years, though. Used to use either the bridge or the neck, never the middle. And the volume was either off or on 10. I definitely got by that way, but I'm having more fun now.
Click to expand...

Pretty much the same for me. The wide sonic palette is only really possible if you make the signal chain pretty clean. Add a lot of fuzz and none of that stuff really works.
 
DonP said:
Pretty much the same for me. The wide sonic palette is only really possible if you make the signal chain pretty clean. Add a lot of fuzz and none of that stuff really works.
Click to expand...
This is a very good point. I use effects sparingly; fuzz only on a couple of tunes where I want a pretty raunchy sound. They are both slide tunes, and when I play slide I mostly just use either the bridge (rhythm/lead) or the neck (some leads).

I use a Crowther Hotcake as a boost sometimes. At low drive settings it leaves the guitar tone pretty much alone and doesn't mess with the use of the guitar's own controls. I find it a very useful tool for counteracting the volume drop when playing out of phase in the middle position.
 
Gahr said:
I really only started doing this the last couple of years, though. Used to use either the bridge or the neck, never the middle. And the volume was either off or on 10. I definitely got by that way, but I'm having more fun now.
Click to expand...

That's my story as well!

It wasn't until I got on to a guitar forum that I even considered the "in between" possibilities. Now I'm hooked.
 
well, I wanted to vote for the middle position, but that wasn't offered as an option
was it. So I claimed that I set the controls for a certain song and leave them there.
*shrugs... Not the right answer, but a good answer. Sometimes I do that.

I really like the middle position on my SGs and my Telecaster. I like the combination of
the tones, with the neck p'up set at about 8 and the bridge pickup at 11. Neck tone set
at about 8 and bridge tone set at 3. The really magic middle position is on my P-90 equipped
Epi ES-339. Middle position turns the two P-90s into a big hum bucker, and it sounds great
like that IMHO.

But sometimes the bridge pickup sounds the best to me... that's true for my '57 Classic plus in the bridge position of my SG special, and it's also true for the Golden Age Overwound hum bucker in the bridge position of my Epiphone Wilshire. And in the case of my Epi ES-339
the two P-90s were wound to very different voices by Ken Rose. The neck pickup has a great
woody Jazzy tone, which I love for some songs, and the neck position has that P-90 grit and snarl that we all know and love. The controls are really responsive on that guitar, it's like
having three different instruments. My two SG specials are like that too, which is why I don't own a one-p'up guitar.

But I mostly like middle position... and use a pedal to ump the tone for a solo.
 
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