I hate the terms "back" and "front" pickup.

[Gunga Din]

That's some existential crisis you're going through.

 

[revd]

When people say "front" or "back" for, say, a J bass, the neck pickup could be the front because it's closest to the player, or the bridge pickup could be the front because people perceive "front" as more "up front", and people associate the treble-ness with frontedness.

Not sure if serious...

 

[Lava]

So what are your thoughts on “input jack”?

 

[5StringBlues]

WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?

 

[-Asdfgh-]

Every time I watch a video or read a discussion about pickups that use front and back, I get very irritated. I have to keep watching till they either point to it or reference it by the control knobs. Why do I have to be a detective to understand which they mean?
C'mon! There is a neck, middle, and bridge for position reference.

There. Whew!

Surely there must be an ISO body to help with this?

 

[-Asdfgh-]

WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?

They can keep their chocolate-covered mitts off my basses, thank you.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

a kick drum is played with your feet

Surely 'foot-operated beater drum'? If we're being pedantic and whatnot.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

How about if we name them like quarks?

Top - Bottom?

Up - Down?

Strange - Charm?

If we have north and south coils, then why not east and west for pickup locations? Every bass to include a compass for correct orientation before declaring pickup locations?

 

[2F/2F]

Bridgemost or neckmost is what the nomenclature should be, IMO.

That said, I prefer saying "treble" and "bass."

 

[themickster]

Every time I watch a video or read a discussion about pickups that use front and back, I get very irritated. I have to keep watching till they either point to it or reference it by the control knobs. Why do I have to be a detective to understand which they mean?
C'mon! There is a neck, middle, and bridge for position reference.

There. Whew!

Every time? Don't you remember from the times before? There are bigger wrongs in this life. It's not like your wife's died from clinical negligence.

 

[BassyBill]

I sort of get the OP’s confusion about this. After all, the bridge end of a bass or guitar is not the back of the instrument, is it? So why is the bridge pickup the back pickup? There’s no logic in the terminology.

 

[prowla]

It isn't clear whether e.g. a Ric back pickup is bridge or middle, or whether a J front pickup is middle or neck.

And a J has two pickups, so it could be argued that it has no middle pickup, but to some its front pickup is too far back to count as a neck pickup for sonic reasons; I might say "bridge" for its back pickup but I always say "front" for the other one (as I am a Ric/EB/Hofner fan and appreciate a true neck pickup, but I digress).

So back and front can be used more generally, more consistently.

Especially when some Rics have their Treble pickup nearer the bridge than the normal one, for example the AC model.
(I've got a pickup to go in the mute bay, so I'd call that one a "bridge" pickup!)

 

[micguy]

Good luck with my custom build.

View attachment 4593906

Someone who would build that not only has created their own problem, they probably just sit in a corner talking to themselves - whatever they want to call it, nobody else is listening, Hence the terms used are unimportant. ;-)

 

[ga_edwards]

The one that annoys me is people calling a kick drum a bass drum. Maybe because I was a band geek in high school and bass drums are played with your hands and a kick drum is played with your feet.

That's funny, because I feel the exact opposite. And I played in a marching band in the Air Cadets. To me, it's bass drum whether it's played with hands or feet. It doesn't change the function of the drum.

 

[micguy]

So what are your thoughts on “input jack”?

It's the female part of the connector system - it's absolutely an input Jill.

This completely deserves it's own pointless thread.

 

[Kipp Harrington]

Words to the wise... "be careful posting what you want to post before posting".

 

[Guitalia]

Looks like some people are saying that the back pickup is obviously the neck pickup and others that the back pickup is obviously the bridge pickup. I asked a guitar player friend who is a Berklee graduate, and he'd never heard the terms "back" and "front" used to describe pickup position and couldn't guess which would be which.

 

[Ekulati]

I just checked all my electric instruments. None of them have a pickup either on the neck or on the bridge.

 

[fhm555]

I guess if I just needed a reason to be annoyed, non standardized nomenclature describing pickup position would be as good an excuse as any.

 

[cnltb]

I hate the terms "back" and "front" pickup.

Ok.