Does missing a pickup effect tone?

[Brandon117]

So I bought a set of uncovered squabbin PRS Metal picks from ebay and unfortunately the neck pickup was dead but I am recieving a replacement. As of now there is only a bridge pickup in the guitar and the neck pickup cavity is empty. My question is that does missing a neck pickup effect the tone I'm getting? The guitar is a Navarro SE custom 24 and the stock pickups sounded more full. I also noticed that when I flipped the toggle switch to the neck pickup even though there is no pickup there I could still hear the bridge pickup. Do the pickups play off of each other since there is only one volume and one tone knob?

 

[jfine]

Sounds like your switch isn't working properly. Or maybe it's the guitar equivalent of the "phantom limb" sensation reported by some people who have lost limbs and can still feel sensation in the missing one.
There are some people who claim that a single-pickup guitar (Fender Esquire, Les Paul Junior) sounds better than an equivalent two- (or more) pickup guitar even when one pickup is being used on the multi-pickup one. Supposedly the extra pickup exerts more magnetic pull on the strings, or something like that. I've never tested that theory, as I've never owned a single-pickup guitar--I need at least neck and bridge pickups for the different styles I play. And I don't think I could tell the difference anyway--to me an Esquire sounds just like a Tele in bridge position.