Ok, somewhat ridiculous thread this, but now im curious i cant stop myself asking.

Ive noticed a few people in various threads making reference to using their bridge pickups for rhythm and switching to the neck for leads, and the thing is i have always come from the opposite approach. I mean some songs call for different pickups for various sections so its not always so simple, but as a general rule i would stick to positions 1 or 2, (the neck, neck and mid or just mid pickups) whenever the singers doing his thing and only switch to my brighter bridge pickup sound when its time to poke my way through the mix and be at the forefront. Admittedly i find i often have to use a boost or gain pedal in conjunction with the bridge pickup so it still has plenty of balls, but i imagine thats fairly normal.

So what im wondering is, how many people here have roughly the same approach, and how many come from the opposite side and would sit on the bridge pickup for rhythm but switch to the neck as a standard thicker lead sound? Im imagining the majority use the same approach as me, but am intruiged how many use the opposite as standard. I mean, the bass player is there to cover the bass frequencies after all, right? Unless youre in the white stripes i guess....

_________________
`I prefer not to listen to music that I can't rip off or improve on` - Ian Dury

For me I tend to go both ways, depending on the song and the effect I want in the sound.
sometimes i am not on the same pickup for more than 15 seconds. sometimes i stay on the neck and use dynamics to simulate switching pickups. I even throw the switch back and fourth to get that effect. I have even switched in the middle of a run, neck on GBE and Bridge or middle on EAD during a run. adds fullness to the high strings and eliminates some boomynes on the low strings. I think you will get allot of different answers

_________________

i actually use the bridge pick up for all my rhythm
and for lead and clean i use both of them i use 2 humbuckers
i find using just the neck pick up makes it to flat sounding where as having both of the pickups on at once you sorta get the best of both worlds you get a nice smooth lead tone with just the right amount of bite to it
like somebizarredude said you going to get lots of different answers because
1. everyone got a different ear as to what sounds good
2. it also depends on what kind of music you listen to
some one that listen to metal will use different setting and pickups the that of a person listen to jazz

_________________
B.C Rich Body Art Warlock "The Fly"--Blacktop Telecaster--ESP LTD EC-100--IbanezRG420EX--into A Fender Mustang III

I just use whatever the track needs - sometimes rhythm parts on neck pickup, leads on bridge, sometimes the other way around, sometimes all on neck, sometimes all on bridge, with assorted other mixes at various intervals depending on what tone is required.

Not to mention various adjustments of volume and tone controls during a track, of course!

There is no right or wrong and there's lots of variables, amp, what kind of pickups you have and the style of music you play to name a few.

_________________
Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

On my strat I'm almost always playing some combination of the neck and middle pickups for melodies and chords. I have a very light touch on rhythm and tend to dig in on lead so I can get away with no switching. I learned to play on a '51 Gibson ES125 which has only one pickup is probably why I play the way I do.

_________________
In my opinion Leo Fender had essentially perfected the guitar amplifier by 1964.

doesnt matter which pickup im using for which bits - its about what sound i want, and which pickup gives the sound i want for the part i want. i played lead across all the pickup on all my guitars, just depended what sound i wanted. the wide range humbucker in my 72 custom tele is mega for rolled off tone slow bluesy sounds. the neck pup pierces through everything though.

i used to play all the solos in the Beatles song 'The End'. theres 3 distinct sounds coming from john and george playing against eachother. judicious use of switching and pickups meant i could get a clear distinction and play all 3 solos seamlessly while each had a defining sound. its the same when i used to play Money by pink floyd, the 3 solos sound very different to eachother, but it was easily achieved by pickup switching and a compressor.

My choices pretty much look like this (keep in mind, my guitars are mainly hum/hum):

Clean channel:
Sharp rhythm bite- bridge
Cutting solo- bridge
Laid back behind another rhythm player- middle
Bluesy rhythm or solo- neck

Distortion:
Solo- bridge
Solo with wah- neck

Reggae doesn't use distortion rhythms.

_________________

Wow, theres a great reggae song waiting to be written right there

Jah, i almost PM`d you the other day, may as well just ask you here instead. I listened to some of your music on reverbnation and enjoyed it, wanted to ask how you got the solo sound on the actual song `jah soldier`? I loved it and thought it is a similar sound to what i want for one of my bands songs when we get back in the studio.

Re the pickup discussion, its pretty interesting actually. I never thought i had a standard approach until i thought about it. I completely agree with everyones comments that its all about what a paticular piece of music needs, but wonder if some people have a standard they would use until they figure out what each piece is calling for? I appreciate Jah`s breakdown of this, when you write and gig a lot you`ll find the same appraoch being used more and more often as your band settles into their sound i guess. To put it another way, in a reggae band you`d pretty quickly work out what works well for the rhythm chops and what works well for different types of solo`s, though this may change dependant on song it becomes fairly safe to approach new songs in the same way unless something screams out to you as needing a different sound. I guess the rhtyhm chops in reggae might be too much if played on a neck pickup? Whereas they would sit nicely in the mix on a more top endy pickup?

I know the change in me having gone from being the only guitarist in a heavy 70`s style riffy rock band to being one of two guitarists in an indie rock band was massive. I needed to buy some fenders for a start! New amp, new pedals, and using way more of the pickups towards the bridge than i have even been used to. In the past it was nearly always neck for all riffs and choruses... which was most of the songs! I found i had to leave a lot more space in the mix for the other band members in the new style of band. (Less devil horns in the audience too) I think this may be what prompted me to start this thread, different pickups on different guitars through different amps seem to occupy different frequencies in the mix, to fill in different gaps in the sound. I know my les paul wasnt happy unless it was over-riding everthing and leading the charge, whereas my strat and tele seem to have their place in the mix and can leave plenty of gaps for the others whilst still being heard.

Anyway, stop waffling olly.

_________________
`I prefer not to listen to music that I can't rip off or improve on` - Ian Dury

Whatever the song dictates.

_________________
-T

"You can't spend what you ain't got, you can't lose what you ain't never had" ~ McKinley Morganfield