Why do guitarists tend not to use the middle pickup by itself?

Question

If you can, name someone (besides Stevie Ray Vaughan) who likes to use the middle pickup by itself.

Answer 1

First, the neck pickup is good for arpeggios and a Blackmore type of sound.

The bridge is for the bite and high end sustain. The middle pickup is not a good sound and is a middle of the road sound . The highs are lacking and the lows are lacking.

Many guitarist hardly use it and me, for one. the middle pickup has a sort of fender sound if you notice which is one reason why many do not use it. They buy other guitars b-cuz they dislike fender. So why buy a guitar which has that sound in the middle pickup?

Answer 2

Jerry Garcia used the middle pickup heavily from his strat days (circa 1970 - 73) to his later guitars (Wolf (74-77), Tiger (78-89), and Rosebud (90-95)). Even when he used three humbuckers, most of the time he was using the middle pickup split to a single coil.

Obviously, he was an innovator who used a wide variety of sounds, but his "home base" was the middle pickup all by itself.

The middle pup is great if you like a clean sound that is not too ice picky and harsh (like the bridge pup) or dark and oily as the neck pickup. It has a charm that sounds woody and full of character to my years, but YMMV.