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ArtVandelay@lemmy.world

Someone with electric guitar knowledge mind explaining pickup placement to me? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 days ago by Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world to c/guitars@lemmy.world

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Working on an unholy abomination of a diy instrument and I'm planning on using the hardware from an electric guitar I got for free at a yard sale. I already took a deep dive into pickup construction and wiring, but the explanation for where they put them on the guitar mostly in guitar player jargon and I'm not sure if that translates to this.

Basic questions, why are there 3 pickups? Why is one behind where you strum and the other two up front? Is there an ideal placement for different sounds?

Any help would be appreciated, I'm not much of a musician, and this is really just a silly project just to see if I can do it but anything worth doing is worth overdoing and I like the chance to learn.

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[–] Jobe@feddit.org 9 points 4 days ago

Placement changes the frequency response dramatically. Closer to the fretboard means deeper resonance, closer to the bridge means higher. What this means for guitar players is that you will have a more direct punchier sound near the bridge and a more mellow sound near the neck. How this applies to what players do with them depends entirely on the genre.

More pickups means more options, but most of my guitars only have 2 pickups and I never use the middle one in the guitar that has 3.