Pinch Harmonic question?

hey whats up..im new to the forum, my names jeff. but anyways, ive got a question about pinch harmonics. i use an ESP LTD. Viper-400 which as you night know uses 2 emg-81 active pick ups. i put this through a small 30 watt crate amp (i should be getting a peavey classic 50 tube pretty soon though). but heres the question...when i leave my back pick up on, and turn off the fron pick up...my pinch harmonics sound real nice, and i get a real cool squeal. but when both pick ups are on, my pinch harmonics dont sound at all, i dont get a squeal or anything...does anybody hear know why i wouldnt get pinch harmonics with both pick ups on?

[ericgtr]

Welcome Jeff, we have a lot of forums covering many topics and guirar is one of them so I am going to go ahead and move this to the appropriate place. [img]images/smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[bbkane]

there are more high harmonic overtones on the bridge pickup

[DannyBoy]

yeah you will find that the bridge pickup (one beside your tremelo) is going to be the one for the more squealing guitar sounds . and the neck pickup (one beside neck) is there for when you wanna do more blazing shredd runs . or get a less harsh tone . i never usually attempt pinches using neck pup . i tend to switch between bridge and neck alot . just keep practicing the switch and it will get pretty quick soon enough man. but dont worry . this happens to us all

oh i see...i knew the bridge pick up was more trebley-er than the neck...but i still wasnt sure if i could get harmonics with both...thanks a lot.

If you pinch a string and look closely you will see that the string is vibrating in sections -there wil be parts of the string that are vibrating and (in regular divisions up the length of the string) parts that are not. These parts that are not vibrating are called nodes, and in the event that one of these nodes occurs over a pick up, the pickup will not pickup any vibrations, so no sound. Nodes inevitably occur further up the string than the bridge pickup so, it is the best choice if you are playing harmonics, however there will be some harmonics that will work over the neck pickup too, but this varies from guitar to guitar and note to note.