X160 Rockabilly neck pickup reversed?

[lycopersicomancy]

Hello everybody!
About six months ago I got an X160 Rockabilly and I love it. It's great.

I've been looking it up and naturally stumbled upon GAD's website and page about the Rockabilly. Looking at pictures of the guitars I realised that mine seems to have the neck bridge reversed (see picture below, see picture of X160 Rockabilly from GAD's site). It sounds normal, so I guess it's just physically upside down, not actually connected in reverse.

Now my questions are
- why would somebody install it upside down?
- does it make a difference? (apart from the few mm of distance from the neck)
- should I bother with turning it the other way around?

Thanks!

 

[GGJaguar]

Welcome to LTG! Reversing the neck pickup for DeArmonds is not uncommon and mostly done on Gretsch guitars. Original type DeArmonds can get boomy in the neck position and it is thought that reversing it moves the polepieces south enough to reduce, but not eliminate, the boominess. Now, the Rockabilly does not have the original style DeArmonds (GAD's review went over that, I think) and the neck pickup is not really boomy. Of course, it the pickups on your guitar have been changed out for original type DeArmonds (TV Jones, Duncan, or even real 1960s pickups) it's possible the previous owner thought they were boomy and did the flip. Bottom line - leave it as is if you like the way it sounds.

 

[Jeff Haddad]

Welcome to LTG! Reversing the neck pickup for DeArmonds is not uncommon and mostly done on Gretsch guitars. Original type DeArmonds can get boomy in the neck position and it is thought that reversing it moves the polepieces south enough to reduce, but not eliminate, the boominess.

That may be what happened - the polepieces are adjusted pretty low on that neck pickup in the photo.

 

[Walter Broes]

No biggie either way - there will be a subtle sound difference as the guys above said. If you want to try it the other way around, carefully remove the pickguard, remove the four pickup mounting screws, reverse the pickup and you're done.

Something I get kind of anal about is that the ideal neck pickup placement is with the polepieces right under the harmonic where the 24th fret would be if the guitar had one - but quite a few people think I'm crazy and don't care or don't hear a difference..

 

[GAD]

…quite a few people think I'm crazy and don't care or don't hear [or see/smell/feel/taste] a difference..

That could be a subtitle to my entire life.

 

[Nuuska]

. . . the ideal neck pickup placement is with the polepieces right under the harmonic where the 24th fret would be. . .

But what happens when you fret - ( not THAT way . . . ) - any strings - the speaking length of the string changes and then you need another pup at next position.

Which leads to conclusion - remember that mystery bass - Guild prototype - wo any pups visible - with that kind construction and magnets covering the area from 24th to bridge - all harmonics at any position on fingerboard would be covered.

Discussion about that pup system here - https://letstalkguild.com/ltg/index...ed-pilot-prototype.209390/page-3#post-1983955

 

[Walter Broes]

But what happens when you fret - ( not THAT way . . . ) - any strings - the speaking length of the string changes and then you need another pup at next position.

You're not the first person to say that to me, of course. Now, I'm on wafer thin ice here, because math and anything related to it and me never got along that great.

But.....frets on a guitar are not in random places - and harmonic nodes on a string aren't either.

So my primitive logic is telling me (very possibly all wrong!) that shortening the string in lenghts that are related to the way us western-worlders like to hear octaves divided up might very well work better with a pickup under a harmonic node that corresponds with that division/system than a pickup that sits in a completely random spot.

Above attempt at logic/primitive math might very well be full of crap.

But...

I do know what my ears and experience tell me. The two guitars with the most glorious sounding ánd easiest to amplify neck pickups I know (and own) are strats, and my beloved Franz-pickup X-175's. (Guess where the neck pickups sit on both..)
The most-heard complaint about neck pickups on electric guitars is that they sound muddy (or "farty" into an overdriven amp), or that they lack the low end, treble sweetness or balance the player is looking for. The two guitars that never ever gave me trouble in that regard are....you guessed it.

I've had friends (some of them much more accomplished players than myself) play my old 175's and wonder out loud how the neck pickup on a 17" wide 3" deep hollowbody can have as much string to string balance, definition and clarity along with a satisfying low end that doesn't get in the way or get overbearing or boomy. I realize there's a good chance I'm full of it, but as you can see...I'm a believer...

 

[GAD]

Good discussion of pickup placement and waveforms:

pickup placement - Frudua Craftpedia

The placement of pickups along the guitar scale is one of the most influential factors of the sound of the bass and the electric guitar.

www.frudua.com

My favorite from there is this picture:


Like everything having to do with AC, it's more complicated than it looks. For a pickup to work you need the string moving within the magnetic field to cause flux. Thus, a pickup that's under the node may not produce much sound at all - you want it in the anti-node. The problem is that as Nusska pointed out is that those nodes move depending on where the string is fretted.

Further complicating the issue is that the neck pickup is closer to the center of the string so that it receives more energy regardless of the harmonics. Also, the nodes are just points on the wave and the pickup picks up flux from its entire firld, so those nodes (which we like to think of in terms like the image above but which are in reality rarely that simple unless produced by a computer) are just part of the equation.

"We've experienced the fact that the perceptions of an expert surpass the precision of measuring instruments."
~Nakabayashi-san of Canon, Inc.

I like physics; I also trust Walter's ears.

The more I studied stuff like this the more I realized how much art there is in it all. I think it's why so many arguments around music and sound are seemingly never-ending.

 

[GGJaguar]

Like everything having to do with AC, it's more complicated than it looks.

Yes, I think it would be easier to have Walter come over, play the guitar and tell me where the neck pickup should be placed.

 

[lycopersicomancy]

Thanks for the great replies everybody! I turned it the other way around last night (and heightened the pole pieces) and now I think it sounds a bit brighter so I'll leave it like this.