It's been an education

You should have heard the conversation with the guy that did my toasters. I told him I took the extra pad off the bridge pick up and he just said wrong wrong wrong it's way to low of an output don't listen to anyone....yadda yadda yadda....

I think you need to re-read my post.

You too, Cassius.

I said that most neck pickups are louder than the bridge pickup on any guitar because the neck pickup magnets are usually stronger. Your post may apply to Rickenbackers, which I fully acknowledge as correct (Considering that I said the same thing in these posts: "That being said, as I posted above, the treble pickup will have lower volume than the high gain, but I can't imagine why it would worry you if it was lower than the neck pickup," and "Because, it's quite clear that the neck pickup is closer to the strings simply by looking at the guitar, right?"), but I said "most" and "any guitar," but I didn't say "all." The difference is that I am referring to other brands, which I indicated by referencing Richard Thompson's Fender.

You may also note that I did not know that toasters were the same for both neck and bridge positions. Most companies do not do this. Therefore, MOST guitars...

I was not presenting my post as fact, nor did I say that it applied to Rickenbacker guitars. I was trying to aid the OP in trying to better understand his problem by positing a theory.

Now, in terms of a reason why Rickenbacker neck pickup is louder than the bridge pickup, I will stand by my own opinion: The neck pickup is closer to the strings. This may not be the case with your instrument, but both my 360 (now sold) and 620/12 had their neck pickups closer to the strings. My main guitar, an SG, has the neck pickup raised and the bridge pickup lowered; I don't think I have to explain the effect of this setup.

The thing with Ricks are that the neck pick up is not really that important. It's the bridge pick up that delivers the treble and basically the jangle. That's why I was wondering about it not being as loud...nobody uses just the bass pick up on a rick but a whole lotta people use just the treble.

I dealt with Fender, Gibson and other miscellaneous pickups for years before I took a RIC pickup apart. I absolutely disagree with you. The magnets of neck pickups are not stronger as a general rule. And most pickups didn't have separate bridge/neck spacings until the aftermarket companies started making them that way. If anything, like Tele pickups, with the smaller magnets in the neck pickup, some have less magnetic pull.

Seth Lover made a pickup. It was used in both positions. The differences had to do with inconsistent windings, not magnets. Leo Fender, when he started, charged his magnets with a car battery and coil. Over time, as the battery lost its charge, some magnets were not charged to as high a gauss. But they were all thrown in the hopper and not differentiated in the production process. When things were mechanized, they were all magnetized the same way.

Seymour Duncan started experimenting with pickups after an incident working in London. But he also worked more on the windings side of things, not the magnets. Larry DiMarzio simply stuck ceramic magnets under a bobbin and started winding until it sounded good to him. His "Super II," his first pickup to go in the neck along with his Super Distortion, sounded brighter because he used less windings, but the same magnet, which the field tended to saturate the coil. And so on.

If anything, all the major players, and even some of the minor ones, know that with the extra string excursion over the neck pickup, that care needs to be taken, and if anything, a slightly lesser magnet has to be used in order to not saturate the coils, which others wind slightly less for the neck position. I disagree with this practice, because it can change the character too much between neck and bridge versions and create impedance imbalances.

What you are referring to as "Strat-itis" with the focused magnetic of the rod magnets pulling a string out of tune on its overtones is a function of the type of magnet and its stagger in the pickup construction, not its strength, per se.

I use it.

If you're not using both pickups, you're not getting the full use of your guitar. And also, as someone else pointed out here, whenever you're in the middle position, you're using the bass pickup (even if you never use it by itself).

Play it long enough and eventually you'll change your tune about that (and your wiring harness settings).

To each his own.

There are a lot of players who don't bother with the neck pickup, but I think most at least tinker with it. It's an interesting contrast when you go from the bridge pickup to the neck, and it's not the most soulful sound in the world; I love it, though. I kick on some fuzz and instantly go into Robert Fripp mode, or blend the neck in with the bridge for a thicker rhythm.

I agree, but it's more common with modern guitars, though I think it certainly applies to certain vintage ones as well.

I'm glad that you responded in a positive manner, at least.

OK, now we try to shift the focus from "most" guitars to "common with modern guitars." You know, there are those out there who still believe we never went to the moon, that the Holocost did not happen, that the CIA killed JFK, and so forth.

Of those that do differentiate between pickups on purpose, 99% of all pickups that have a neck and bridge position version of the same pickup (Teles excluded because of their different geometries) use the same magnets, and change only the windings, and even advertise that fact in their literature.

I'm sure you have found a pickup on a guitar out there that may have had a stronger magnet in the neck position, for whatever reason: the original inconsistant gaussing or charging of the respective magnets (that happened to me on a 1979 Les Paul, and I swapped them front to back), the bridge pickup got too close to something like an unshielded power transformer in an amp or an electric motor (Seymour Duncan's anecdote how he learned about gaussing), etc. But you're talking to a guy who has been there and experimented and poured over the differences in pickups, albeit as an avocational musican, for almost four decades, up to and including the present day as I assemble my fanned fret guitars to compliment my two Rickenbacker guitars and 4002 bass. If you insist on maintaining a generality of neck pickup magnets, well, get the gauss meter and send me some audio/video of some measurements, because, yes, I'm from Missouri and you're going to have to show me.