Official Luthiers Forum!

I was watching Steve Vai the other night and noticed he has 4 or so pickups on his electric guitar. Is this common? What is the rationale? Are they there to produce different sounds?

Puzzled of Somerset. Dave

There are 3, and yes to your question.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I also noticed his volume control goes to 11......

don't strats have 3 pickups?

could have sworn they did...oddest thing I guess...

Yep it's for different tone selections. Not only are there three he can split the hum buckers, coil taps and have even more different tones. But players like him have tone in their hands too which is a huge part of his tone. His pedals and amps are major sources of his tone too.

Many a weary tone-hunter, bereft of funds from years of buying and selling $500 boutique combination fuzz/wah pedals and plectrums hewn from the shells of fossilised Jurassic tortises, has woken one morning to a startling revelation. They’d been blind for so long but now finally the truth is clear, and it is just as their sensei told them, back when they made their first faltering attempts at the intro to ‘Little Wing’ … the tone had been within them all along.