Picking directly above a SD '59 neck pickup is warmest tone?

    I'm using a JTM45 low gain profile for a clean tone and have found picking directly above a SD '59 neck pickup gives me the warmest tone. If I was to pick just one inch further away (towards bridge) then the tone will get surprisingly much brighter. I'm not complaining but wanted to know if this is common for neck pickups played clean or with certain profiles, or is it that my pickup is set too high?

    I like this result at the moment so I'm in no hurry to change it. But I do have to concentrate on my hand placement much more. I've really never noticed this before.

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

    That pickup may be more sensitive to this than others, but it’s not unique. Picking in the middle of the string should yield the warmest tone (e.g., at the 12th fret for an open sting, at the 19th fret for a note fretted at the 7th fret, etc.) - you get fewer harmonics that way.

    Yes, well.. tone changes a lot depending where You pick the note. Sometimes, for cleanish arpeggio or Soft chords in 1st position, I love to strum around frets 12 - 15, that zone of the neck.

    Probably the 'warmest' tone is picking the string at the half of the lenght from fret to bridge.

    yeah sure, it's a good way to warm up your tone, as well as playing with bare fingers, you could also reduce the neck tone pot to 5 to get a more jazzy sound.

    Hand placement is a key to a huge variety of tones & attacks , but I think vol pot is much more important , it can have drastically effects on a tone and is often neglected by metal players and the young generations. It was a common practice of blues and rock players in the 60's and 70's before pedals.

    Here is an example , it's easier with NAM than with the KPA , but you get the idea , going from little wing to purple haze with just a neck tone pot :

    check @ 0:50 for a demo of this practice :

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    I didn’t always do this, and it’s been a long time since I did, but I rarely play with the volume or tone pots wide open anymore.

    If wide open is what I find myself at I’ll usually adjust something so I can back away from it. Where wide open is well past ‘prudent’ :)

    Especially on a Les Paul…the tone pots often don’t do jack squat until you get down around 4’ish.

    It’s kind of like running an engine.

    Yeah….you can run it wide open, but now you’ve got only one direction to go….and redline is never the sweet-spot, nor where you want to hang out.

    EVH’s intro to Drop Dead Legs is a great example. Clear as day. Same amp, no channels….just the volume pot.

    Or anything by Jeff Beck. That guy….you can watch his hands and still have no idea what’s going on. I get *more* confused.


    Those two did it mostly out of necessity and that’s how they learned. But it’s something another pedal (like many do) really can’t mimic.

    Bonamassa has a great video on manipulating the amp/guitar interaction, too.

    Quote from Ruefus

    Yeah….you can run it wide open, but now you’ve got only one direction to go

    Yes this is it , I get around 9 vol. pot on my les pauls , it's really impressive to go from 10 to 7 on my favorite JCM800 , you just travel in time from the 90's to the 60's by the push of a pot

    Quote from Ruefus

    Especially on a Les Paul…the tone pots often don’t do jack squat until you get down around 4’ish.



    Bonamassa has a great video on manipulating the amp/guitar interaction, too.

    Take a look at the wiring, probably your LP has a Modern one

    Mod Garage: Three Ways to Wire a Tone Pot - Premier Guitar https://share.google/nSc0w21bOL99DvQwO

    A 50's one is dramatically different from 10 to 7


    Please link it here.

    Quote from Sollazzon

    Take a look at the wiring, probably your LP has a Modern one

    Mod Garage: Three Ways to Wire a Tone Pot - Premier Guitar https://share.google/nSc0w21bOL99DvQwO

    A 50's one is dramatically different from 10 to 7


    Please link it here.

    Well….mine is not a conventional set up by any means.

    I replaced the pickups and the 50s wing with Fishman Fluence Classics.

    Not pictured are the modified Seymour Duncan Triple Shot pickup rings. I wired them to allow me to select (per pickup) the two HB voices and single-coil mode.


    That was fun figuring out how to adapt it. (Being serious).

    In single coil mode, the tone pots are push/pull, letting me select which coil (outer/inner) is operating

    It is complete, over-the-top overkill…but serves a purpose.

    Experimentation.

    I found a couple of unconventional configurations I *really* like. One is - HB neck, SC bridge with the inner coil on. (Outer is more ‘conventional’).


    Mix volumes to taste.

    Turned a guitar I played occasionally into one I have a hard time putting down.