Should the bridge output on an SG be noticeably lower than the neck?

andyman · February 2018

OK, so maybe it was a false alarm. I measured the pickup and it's 13.68k, while the neck is about 7.5k. I had to lower the neck pickup until it was almost in the body and raise the bridge until the E string was buzzing (then slightly down), but they sound more or less balanced now.
Shocking that the guy was playing it like that.

Funkfingers · February 2018

andyman said:

I measured the pickup and it's 13.68k

This suggests that your pickup coils and output conductors are undamaged. It says nothing about the bar magnet.

andyman said:

I had to lower the neck pickup until it was almost in the body and raise the bridge

Look at photographs of vintage Gibson solid body guitars with PAF humbuckers. You will often see the pickups adjusted that way.

andyman said:

Shocking that the guy was playing it like that.

If the previous owner used enough gain, the difference would have been evened out into lovingly clipped square wave distortion.

WezV · February 2018

The simplest answer is easy to overlook.

SG's can look wrong with the pickups set for a decent balance because the neck angle combined with a flat top often make it look more extreme than other guitars.

It can also be harder to find sweet spots and balance outputs when the pickups don't match the string angle.

here are a few examples which show the compromise... it can look very odd when they are mounted on t he guard

Image: http://i61.tinypic.com/1z23n7d.jpg

Image: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7221/7354961688_5da45d5f30_o.jpg

Image: http://www.strat-talk.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=2503&pictureid=17752

andyman · February 2018

Those top three aren't too bad, but that extreme bottom one is how I had to set up mine. Weird.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

In this Discussion

Become a Subscriber!

Should the bridge output on an SG be noticeably lower than the neck?

Comments