Pickup Position Placement

[Scott Freeman]

Hello... I'm in the process of making my first guitar and kind of taking it slow and learning as I go. The pickups that I have are two Seymour Duncan Blackouts, and the guitar has a 25" scale with 24 frets. I have Schaller bridge which is already mounted in the proper position for the scale (http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_ta ... b=Pictures)

I would greatly appreciate any tips for where I should place the pickups relative to the bridge end (or high e saddle position, or any other good point). I've read about a strategy based on anti-nodes but have also read other opinions that this method for pickup placement isn't exactly the best as fretting changes where the anti-nodes are. I play a wide variety of music and am looking for versatility and simply the best tone regardless of whether I'm playing blues, jazz, alternative, or metal.

Thank you in advance for advice, and please let me know if you need further information about the specs of the guitar.

[Gordon Bellerose]

It's my belief; and I may be wrong, that the pickups are placed not only for sound, but for ease of playing.
The closer to the bridge, the more treble you will produce. (I do feel that a lot of guitars have the bridge pickup placed too close to the bridge)
The closer to the neck, more bass.
The distance in between is left for the strumming or picking hand. So any combination will work.
I've never heard of a real scientific method of placing pickups.

As I said at the start, I may be wrong.

[Mark Swanson]

That's a part of guitar ergonomics, but it's not as big of a deal as the sound reasons you mentioned. I will say that I can easily play a telecaster, but if I move to a strat that darn middle pickup gets in my way unless I lower it.

[David King]

It's quite easy to mount the pickups temporarily upside down on blocks over the strings and move them around to see where they might work best.

[Samuel Hartpence]

It's quite easy to mount the pickups temporarily upside down on blocks over the strings and move them around to see where they might work best.

That is a fantastic idea. Perhaps a little cumbersome to test, but a great idea non-the-less.

[Jeff Mills]

I don't know guys... I asked a similar question on another forum and was not so nicely reminded of the "mathematical Formula" for pickup placement. When I asked the person for the formula I got no response other than find it out for yourself... I'm of the impression if someone wants to believe in mathamagical voodoo for pickup placement then more power to them...

Right or Wrong - my 33.25" scale basses go 1" from the end of the neck to the edge of the pickup and with one of the bridge saddles moved all the way forward 4.25" to the edge of the bridge pickup from the bridge saddle. This allows for plenty of room for fingers to play either in front of or in back of the bridge pickup. Plus there is enough room for those slappers to do their thing in front of the neck pickup.

Sorry... I don't believe in magic - but the temporary mounting idea is a great one...

[Mark Swanson]

You won't find that attitude here Jeff.
Anyone who has a "magic formula" that they then will not reveal is full of it. There is no magic formula for that anyway, the closest thing to that I have ever heard is to put the pickups underneath "harmonic nodes", which makes no sense either because the minute that you fret a note that all goes out the window.
The best place to put pickups depends on the other physical dimensions of the instrument, each one is different. There's no magic to it, put them where it makes sense to you, and your bass.

[David King]

Here's my "attitude", choose locations by looks alone. If it looks right it will undoubtedly sound right too.

I hesitate to post the following as it so totally irrelevant that it borders on an effort to sideline the discussion; Pianos are supposed to have their hammers strike the strings at the 7th octave partial. If the action gets shifted a bit they sound rather odd.

[Mark Swanson]

Yes, but your comment makes as much sense as anything else.
And, a piano is not a fretted instrument, and the minute you shorten a piano string in the way you would fret a note on a guitar neck then the hammer would no longer strike that spot...so.....

[David King]

...So keep moving the pickup via a complicated electromechanical apparatus with fretting sensors and lead acid batteries?..

[Mark Swanson]

Good idea!

[Rodger Knox]

If you wanted a mathematical location, wouldn't it be between harmonic nodes? The nodes have no excursion and therefore no output to the pickup. That of course is irrelevant since fretting changes everything.
I guess you could optimize pickup location if you have a favorite note.

[John Kingma]

My method for determining where to place pickups is this...

I put them where I routed the cavities, wherever that may be. I've built 48 electric guitars and this formula seems to work quite well for me.

[Samuel Hartpence]

There is also this:
http://guitar-pickups.biz/hp135333/Sing ... e035cX7f07

I have thought it possible (albeit awfully ugly), that one could build pickups that slide on a rail system, or even take it a step further and build individual pickups for each string that also slide on individual rails. Might be fun, might give you some cool versatility and sound, but like I said, the way I imagine it, it would be terribly ugly.

[Samuel Hartpence]

And apparently, I wasn't the first to imagine it, and it is ugly:
http://www.lieberguitars.com/basses/entwistle-explorer/

[David King]

We can safely say that the idea started in the 1950s with DeArmond sliding archtop pickups

Well the first Alembic bass, built for Jefferson Airplane's Jack Cassidy has sliding pickups that also float like on an archtop.

Who could forget the Gibson Grabber bass?

More recently Michael Spalt reprised the idea with his "wiper" basses.

There was also a fellow from Texas who devised a servo driven pickup positioning system in the early 2000s.

I tell you it's all been done before.

[John Catto]

There's no magic formula, common sense should tell you most of what you need to know. If you place the bridge pickup too close to the bridge it will sound brittle & thin, how much so also depends on the characteristics of the pickups you are using. It should come as no surprise that Fender placed their extremely bright sounding pickups a healthy distance away from the bridge or that Gibson on the first Les Paul Juniors placed the bridge P90 (a thick/dark sounding pickup in general) closer initially until they had trouble with the bridge studs leaning and breaking through into the pickup route, more common sense and a problem that has also plagued Fender styles with buckers and Floyd Rose bridges. As far as the neck pickup, it usually goes close to the end of the fingerboard, too far away and it'll look weird AND likely not sound how you're expecting. As a general rule 22 fret fingerboards result in a neck pickup placement that is dark and thick but some people will see as "woofy" sounding, 24 frets gives you a pickup that is more mid-focused but some don't find "right". For what it's worth the neck pickup placement on a Tele gives you a good cheat point for hitting a high octave harmonic on an open string.

[John Catto]

The Dan Armstrong "London" (wood bodied) guitars had a sliding pickup. Most people unsurprisingly place it where it would be if it were fixed. Single pickup guitars with the pickup in the mid point are unusual but do exist. The late 50's single pickup 330s have it placed in the middle and for many players who want an even sound it's the perfect compromise. The same goes for the single pickup on the Turner Model One, it's more or less where the middle pickup might be on a Les Paul, this gives it an exceptionally vocal and even solo tone.

[John Kingma]

Single pickup guitars with the pickup in the mid point are unusual but do exist.

The very first guitar I built (which was for my son) had a single humbucker in the middle. It sounds completely different from any other guitar I've ever heard. I wouldn't say it sounds great, but it's definitely different.

[Henrique Schneiter]

Wow! I'm actually amazed by how many big guys here doesn't care as much as I do to pickup placement! It's a MAJOR concern to me! And I must say that I learned that the hard way. Nowadays I have a dummy body guitar that I use to test different pickups and spot placements (I abandoned the method that David mentioned because it's really awkward to me, and if you place the pickups where you usually strum the strings, you'll have to strum them on a different place and then sound obviously different.).

Some of my best built guitars that I still own are much less played than others just because the wrong pickup spotting. My 3-pickup SG and my headless semi-solid published a while ago had the same bridge pickup (golden age hot HB), but I placed it much closer to the bridge on the headless. It sounds great on that one, but on the SG, well, not great. I still love the SG but if I could do it over, I'll do it different. In my experience, a good alnico humbucker will not sound excessively weak and too brittle (to me) even if you put it leaning on the bridge. That doens't apply to single coils however.

After saying that, it's clear that I've been favoring the bridge pickup (humbuckers and p-90s) closer to the bridge than stock. On my last guitars the distance of the high-e saddle and the pickup edge is around 2 cm, varying from 1,8 to 2,5 cm. They really sound better (again, to me) like that. When using pivoted bridges like the floyd rose, I go towards the 2,5 cm just to avoid the problem John Catto mentioned about studs breaking into the bridge pickup cavity, otherwise, I get them close!

About the neck pickups, I use them as close as possible to the fingerboard end (leaning on it mostly). Their sound will vary much more with different scale lenghts and fingerboard lenght (e.g. 22 or 24 frets). About the middle pickups, well, they go in the middle of the others... but actually I don't frequently use a middle pickup. Just for the record, the middle humbucker do get in my strumming way, but a single coil like on a strat or a HSS guitar doesn't.