Maybe a dumb question but I'm a bit confused...

[gambit]

I put a seymour duncan JB-4 in the bridge of my guitar and a seymour duncan jazz in the neck.

If I understand correctly the bridge pickup is used for lead work and you should be picking close to the bridge... while the neck pickup is used for rythym and you should be picking closer to the neck.

So the jazz should be my rythym pickup and the jb4 my lead?

I feel like sometimes I'm getting more out of the jazz pickup than the jb4..... when it comes to playing clean guitar forget about it, its like the jazz pickup explodes while the jb4 is left in the dust... it was also much louder, the jazz, than the jb4 when i got it. I tried to get the jb4 as close to the strings as possible to compinsate and pull the jazz pickup as far back as i could. My JB4 is literally almost touching the strings!

Am I doing something wrong here? I was under the impression that the bridge pickup, used for lead work, should be "hotter" and more trebley than the neck pickup.

thanks so much guys, please help!

 

[#2121313]

From my experience I've never found the JB to be hot at all, I tried a Dimebucker for a while and hated, that was supposed to be even hotter.

One key factor would be your pots (volume/tone), if your using humbuckers (which you are) you should have 500K pots installed. Could be that, could also be another wiring issue.

Did you wire them yourself? Maybe you can post a pic of the wiring?

To your question on when to use each pickup, it all depends on what your looking for tone wise. I play strictly metal, and don't play much lead, but my thinking has always been, neck pickup for a fatter/warmer tone and bridge for higher/trebly type tones. I use my bridge pick up exclusively for high gain rhythm (metal) and would use my bridge also for fast shred type lead and my neck for clean tones and melodic lead tones.

Any JB users that can weigh in?

 

[Turumbar82]

pickups aren't limited to bridge only for lead and the neck for rhythm. That's just an artifact from yesteryear. Most metal guys use their bridge pickup for rhythm work. Some guys use a bridge pickup only. (Alexi Laiho, Van Halen) A lot of people use their neck pickup for soloing a lot but go back and forth too. (Malmsteen, Petrucci)

Personally I use my neck pickup for clean rhythm, blues soloing, and fast yngwie like shredding. I use my inbetween sounds for chimey, sparkly cleans. I use my bridge pickup for twangy cleans, crunchy sounds, heavy stuff, and biting solos. As to where I pick, it just matters on what sound I want. Every place you pick the strings give you a slightly different tone so it's up to you to experiment to find your favorite places to pick.

You really shouldn't have too much of a difference with volumes between the jazz and the jb. It kind of sounds like there is something up with the wiring since you have to put the jb so close to the strings.

 

[MrMarkIII]

A decent rule-of-thumb is there should be about a 1/16" space between the bottom of the string and the top of the pickup, with the string fretted at the last fret.
This amounts to about the thickness of a low E-string.
If the strings are too close, the pickup magnets can actually inhibit the vibration, resulting in low output and weird, unmusical harmonics, called "wolf-tones".
This is more common with single-coil pickups, but, yes, your pickups can be too close to the strings.
It's not unusual for the neck pickup to sound louder, because the pickup is closer to the middle of the string, and the vibration from the string is wider and fatter toward the middle (think of a jump-rope).
The bridge pickup is brighter sounding because the vibrations at the string end next to the bridge are richer in shorter, brighter frequencies.
There's no hard and fast rules, of course. Many of Eddie Van Halen's most famous work is on a guitar with just one pickup at the bridge. A lot of blues players like to use both pickups simultaneously. Stevie Ray Vaughn did many most excellent solos with his neck pickup.
The important thing is to keep looking for your own sound.

 

[Paw]

I agree with what MrMarkIII says, and I use the pickups in a very similar way to Turumbar82. I have a Jackson with jazz in the neck and jb in the bridge, and the volume is almost identical when switching between them. They're placed with the same space between strings and pickups. Makes me think there's something wrong with the wiring. As MrMarkIII says, the pickups shouldn't be too close to the strings either.

Best of luck!

 

[gambit]

If I take a pic of the inside from the back (epiphone LP) would that be sufficient for you guys to tell me if somethings up?

Also, I need to remove the chassis of my tremoverb to do tolexing (I know, I already posted in the other forum.) I also have a bad pot on my FX send but I'm going to leave this to professionals.. I undid the four screws on the bottom, why wont it slide out?


thx guys!

 

[#2121313]

If I take a pic of the inside from the back (epiphone LP) would that be sufficient for you guys to tell me if somethings up?

Yes, as long as it's a clear picture, should be enough. Try and also specify the pot value (250K or 500K etc)

Not familiar with the amp, sorry...

 

[MrMarkIII]

Look for a long screw sticking out of the bottom of the chassis. It may look like it is too long and needs to be tightened. Back this screw out about a 1/4" and see if the chassis isn't easier to slide out.