Pickup mixing

[Intra Limpidus]

Alright so if I wanted one pickup in the bridge and a different one in the neck, lets just say abraxas neck, and painkiller bridge for example, What do I have to think about when mixing and matching them? does eq have to be similar? what about output? etc...

[darrenw5094]

Volume should be ok. I have a Riff Raff neck paired with the Painkiller bridge, so there is no problem there.
The hotness will affect the gain of the pair obviously, so if you want that to be level go for similar pups.
EQ doesn't have to be similar, as rules are made to be broken, it is your sound after all. However, some pups vary quite a bit in the EQ department more than others, so a carelss match might make you unhappy, which we don't want. :)

[tokairic]

I would say go for it, but be careful what you choose..........I fitted a matched pair of Mules into a 24 fret guitar and found the bridge p/up very, very bright. After lots of head scratching and mods I discovered that my bridge was much closer to the pickup than similar 22 fret guitars.
Since then I have noticed many Bareknuckle Mule users replace their 8.4k Mule bridge pickup with the Abraxas 14k bridge pickup - I think they must have had the same issue........... 

[Intra Limpidus]

Thanks for the feedback guys! Also I've heard that if the neck pickup is higher output than the bridge than that's bad, is it really?     

[darkbluemurder]

Also I've heard that if the neck pickup is higher output than the bridge than that's bad, is it really?   

Not necessarily. For me personally, yes, because I want the brighter lower output pickup where the string vibration is bigger, i.e. in the neck, and the fatter higher output pickup where the string vibration is shallower, i.e. in the bridge. But many guitars in the 50s, 60s and 70s had equal pickups in both positions, or even the hotter pickup in the neck (even that may have been unintentionally - my guess is nobody cared at that time). I have heard of a player who used a Super Distortion with the Dual Sound option in the neck and a PAF in the bridge. He used the SD in parallel for cleans, the PAF for dirty rhythms and the SD in series for leads. Worked for him - would not work for me. It's personal preference.

Cheers Stephan

[Intra Limpidus]

Ok so how about a painkiller bridge and warpig neck?

[Yellowjacket]

Ok so how about a painkiller bridge and warpig neck?

Why a bright sounding bridge pickup with a very phat neck?  That just seems like it wouldn't work so well.  There are many neck pickups that would match the Painkilller bridge better. 

[Intra Limpidus]

Ok so how about a painkiller bridge and warpig neck?

Why a bright sounding bridge pickup with a very phat neck?  That just seems like it wouldn't work so well.  There are many neck pickups that would match the Painkilller bridge better.

Yea I was worried about them not mixing too well. I chose them because I like the tonal qualities of them both judging from the demos on the bare knuckle site.

[Yellowjacket]

Sounds like you need two guitars =-o