String and pickup alignment

dindude

One for the techs if you please.... 

I'm gonna soon swap out the neck pup on my Charvel wild card as its somewhat unbalanced in output next to the JB bridge. 

Anyways, I've noticed that the neck pup pole pieces are way off with the strings, especially on the bass side. Does this matter? I don't think it's a flaw with this particular guitar as I have seen it on other examples, but it does seem strange to me. It must effect the sound somehow, no?

Here's a crapy ipad pic to demonstrate......

http://i1137.photobucket.com/albums/n505/dindude/ccb96b1e67d67003a40159cd5990c6e2_zps117bcf2f.jpg

Am I best going for something like cool rails if a Strat style will never align?

As always, cheers

OilCityPickups

You wanna see how far out 1972 Tele Deluxes are out! You're still going to be in the flux of the magnet ... if it sounds okay it is okay.

Lamf37

TheGuitarWeasel said:

You wanna see how far out 1972 Tele Deluxes are out! You're still going to be in the flux of the magnet ... if it sounds okay it is okay.

Agreed, my DC Junior is the same , not quite as far out as that pic, but out of line nonetheless

FX_Munkee

I've used Gibson spaced pickups in the bridge position of Fender spaced guitars for years and it works just fine. I think it's one of those "wisdom of the internet" things, ie lots of people who have never actually done something agreeing that it must be wrong/right.

dindude

Cool, thanks dudes, what I suspected really, bigger things to worry about. Like which ones will actually fit as it's not routed for the traditional Strat v shaped lower bobbin.

WezV

TheGuitarWeasel said:

if it sounds okay it is okay.

this.

i have had it where it clearly didn't sound right though.  that was a trem spaced humbucker in the neck position on a les paul 

ESchap

I tried a 6 string mini humbucker in the bridge of an EB bass copy .... strings and pickup poles were a mile off ... it worked very well, if a tad bright.

ICBM

dindude said:

One for the techs if you please.... 

I'm gonna soon swap out the neck pup on my Charvel wild card as its somewhat unbalanced in output next to the JB bridge. 

Am I best going for something like cool rails if a Strat style will never align?

Put in a Li'l Screamin' Demon.

Trust me .

A friend of mine had this exact model. The stock neck pickup is shit - bland and characterless. (No surprise really, it's a Duncan stacked humbucker…)

Yes, I know the LSD is meant to be a bridge position pickup - but it's not actually as hot as you would expect from the name, it's more like a hotter PAF-style humbucker. A very nice balance with the JB.

Don't worry about the polepiece alignment, it's really not that important as long as the strings pass reasonably close to the polepieces. You don't get a volume drop when you bend a string and it's halfway between the two poles… the magnetic field just isn't that precise.

bntylr

TheGuitarWeasel;66754" said:

You wanna see how far out 1972 Tele Deluxes are out! You're still going to be in the flux of the magnet ... if it sounds okay it is okay.

Confirmed! Mines ridiculous.

Doesn't seem to effect the performance though.

OilCityPickups

bntylr said:

TheGuitarWeasel;66754" said:

You wanna see how far out 1972 Tele Deluxes are out! You're still going to be in the flux of the magnet ... if it sounds okay it is okay.

Confirmed! Mines ridiculous.

Doesn't seem to effect the performance though.

The Irony is, the only thing they corrected in the Wide Range reissues was the pole spacing! Everything else was shite!

John_P

I know it doesn't make any difference - my custom24 sounded fantastic tonight with 50mm suhr pickups but it does niggle me and even though you have to be very close to spot it - I would prefer to have pole pieces that lined up with the strings.  Just a little detail that I'd like to correct.

Pyroman

  My new Schecter's soapbar looks just like your picture.  For a while, I thought it might be a problem, as It was giving me much less punch in the low end than it should have.  ( sounded awesome when I bought it, and indeed- the P90 is WHY I chose THIS guitar).

  Turned out the problem was me...  I had inadvertantly turned the  neck tone pot way down while switching back and forth on the push/pull split.  When I turned it back up, the punch and definition came right back- imagine that, durrr...  It does sort of irritate my sense of aesthetics, but whatever- the guitar sounds fantastic, and that's all that really matters, right?

  I still wonder what, exactly, a coil split accomplishes on a single coil pickup.  In/out of phase?  I'd look it up on Schecter's website, but this model is not listed there.  Must be a special run.  ( I couldn't find ANY with Duncan Designed soapbar pickups on the site for that matter)

OilCityPickups

On a Schecter single coil the 'split' is a tap. Schecter got an industry reputation for being amongst the first to market tapped single coils.
I do a couple of tapped singles myself, my Diesel Tap Tele bridge pickup is wound to around 6.8k like a fairly standard Tele unit, and an output wire taken out to a brass eyelet. then I carry on winding to well over 10k before putting a 'finishing' output. That then means that you can switch in high or low power.

dindude

ICBM said:

dindude said:

Put in a Li'l Screamin' Demon.

Trust me .

Hhmmm, hadn't considered that, will have to get over the looks first though.

Van_Hayden

John_P;67037" said:

I know it doesn't make any difference - my custom24 sounded fantastic tonight with 50mm suhr pickups but it does niggle me and even though you have to be very close to spot it - I would prefer to have pole pieces that lined up with the strings.  Just a little detail that I'd like to correct.

For years PRS didn't bother with wide spacing - not sure if they do now.

Not so much wisdom of the internet but a way to sell people pickups back in the 80s!

More cosmetic than anything. Although wider bridge pickup coils sound different and you have to compensate in the design.

OilCityPickups

I tend to wind in a lot of pasta ... keeps the carb intake up ...