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Favorite pickups and position?

Looking into my first build. Been thinking about pickups, especially humbuckers, as well as whether to mount bridge or middle or neck position. Just wondering what people have already experimented with. First idea was a Lace pickup somewhere in the neck position, maybe add a piezo too with a switch. There are a lot of pickups out there and position and the kinda box you have I assume are all factors. What you like?

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on August 16, 2018 at 8:39am

Humbuckers!!! Any position. If your into just singing and playing then go for the neck to mid position. With the mid being more natural sounding. The bridge will give you more of a twang if that's what your into. Putting two in gives you the widest frequency range. So both the bass and highs will be there. A pickup in the middle position wont have the same sound.

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Permalink Reply by JP Lace Master on August 16, 2018 at 10:05am

Depends on what sounding you're looking for you. positioning a Piezo is one thing; it'll affect the volume and resonance depending on where its mounted inside the box or whatever the body is made of. An electric pickup depends more on its relation to the neck and bridge. If you want a twang or highs or something a bit stronger for leads, you go with the bridge. you want something nice and low and good for rhythm, you go Neck. I got an old Epiphone Humbucker in the middle of one of my builds and gives a nice mid range, has a nice meatier rhythm. All depends on what sound you want to come out of them.

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Permalink Reply by Eliah Holiday on August 16, 2018 at 3:56pm

I guess a pre-amp is another possibility. I'm leaning more towards a neck pickup placement as I plan for solo playing and like a solid rhythm sound. I was curious about mid position, seems uncommon. The Lace pickup seems like a good buy but again I find myself curious over all these other pickups I see in builds. Obviously the Lace pickup is at the high end cost-wise. I've heard good things about the piezo rail under bridge. I once saw a video of a CBG with a humbucker in bridge and a piezo inside and when he switch them both on the guitar really came to life with the qualities of both.

Anyways, I probably just gotta make 14 CBGs with variety lol.

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Permalink Reply by BrianQ. on August 16, 2018 at 5:52pm

Most 1 pickup guitars have them mounted in the middle. I actually like the sound.overall tone lies within your amp settings tho.

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on August 16, 2018 at 7:24pm

Hi, don't forget that pickups are designed for a cetian position under the string, and are often marked (on the box anyway) neck, middle, bridge. This I imagine is due to the strings output at different points of the strings length so giving a more even responce,or to enhance the sharp to mellow tones of the string. But in a CBG I nont think that matters.

Taff

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on August 17, 2018 at 2:16am

Regular 6 string pickups are marked "Bridge" or "Neck" usually based on the polepiece spacings.

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Permalink Reply by Milt Haselmire on August 17, 2018 at 2:31am

This is correct.

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Permalink Reply by Korrigan on August 17, 2018 at 3:07am

My hands down favorite pickups for CBGs are the MGB Micro Pup (3k single coil) and Mini Box Buckers (2k or 4k humbucker). They sound great and like the Lace Matchbook they are surface mounted so require no cutting of the soundboard and neck. And you can't beat the price, $9.50 for the single coil, $15 for the humbucker.

As for placement, with a single pickup, I try to go with 3.75" from the bridge as suggested byTomT and Uncle Fred's experiments.

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Permalink Reply by Eliah Holiday on August 17, 2018 at 5:14am

Thanks for the link. Been looking at the Wiggins Brand and the P90 as well. Probably gonna stick with neck position, though I may toy with the idea of a piezo rail in the bridge saddle + neck humbucker. The MGB stuff looks interesting.