tonerider neck humbuckers

[brokin009]

hey guys, quick question, ive noticed the neck pickups with tonerider the adjustable screws sit towards the bridge as i put the wiring to face the bridge like the strat pickups, is that the right way or do the screws sit the other side towards the neck?

[wazkelly]

Usually the side where wires come out is at the bottom and sometimes that may not necessarily mean screw poles are nearest to the fret board.

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[Simon Barden]

The 'standard' approach to neck humbuckers on two-pickup guitars is the have the adjustable screws nearest the neck, not the bridge, whilst for the bridge humbucker, the adjustment screws are nearest the bridge. This was purely done by Gibson as they though it looked best, and everyone else followed them. As long as they aren't tapped for single coils and remain humbuckers, then it doesn't affect the sound whichever way they go round.

The only time it can make a difference in standard humbucker mode is if the screws are raised significantly and the pickup lowered a bit to compensate. This is a 'trick' that is becoming more popular and mentioned a lot in guitar mags, as it can give a different tone to the pickup, and simulate the effect of having mismatched pickup coils (with different numbers of turns of wire on the two coils), as the screw coil will now have a slightly higher output than the slug coil, which is further away from the strings. Unlike real mismatched pickups, this doesn't have any effect on the hum-cancelling ability of the pickup, as the number of turns of wire on the coils (which are what pick up any radiated noise) remains the same.

If you tap the pickups, then the orientation will have a small effect on the sound depending on whether it's the screw coil or the slug coil that is still live when tapped, with the coil (of a single humbucker) nearest the bridge having the brighter sound and the coil nearest the neck having slightly more bass to it.

Of course you can now get humbuckers with no screws, (just slugs), or both coils with adjustable screws, and again it's only if you tap the pickup that the position of the live coil then makes any difference.

On 3-humbucker guitars, the middle pickup traditionally has the adjustable screw coil towards the bridge, but this again is only because Gibson did it like that first.

[brokin009]

ok thaks guys, yeah ive fitted all my toneriders having the wire at the bottom which puts the screws towards the bridge on the neck pickup, it doesnt sound like it effects them, ive done it with a rocksong, generator and now my alnico IV. i wasnt sure as a long time gibson follower told me i had them the wrong way and i explained why they sit like that and thanks simon you explained it in better detail than i could. thanks again guys 😊

[Andyxlh]

Gary Moore's famous les Paul had the pickups in the wrong way around, either one or both I'm not sure, and apparently that was the source of the fantastic tone that came out of it. I'm a sceptic, I'd say it was more to do with the talent in the man's fingers...

[Simon Barden]

Gary Moore's famous les Paul had the pickups in the wrong way around, either one or both I'm not sure, and apparently that was the source of the fantastic tone that came out of it. I'm a sceptic, I'd say it was more to do with the talent in the man's fingers...

The neck pickup was reversed when re-installed after being rewound, but that was not the reason for the out-of-phase sound. That was because when re-assembling the pickup,the two magnets in the base had been flipped over, which meant that the pickup was now anti-phase with the bridge pickup.