F spacing myths?

DeeTee

Hello all. I've seen a few people saying that F spacing is pretty much a myth (most recently in @hymnal's classified thread) in terms of it making much of a difference.

Can anyone with more pickup knowledge weigh in on this? I thought it was something to do with the type of magnets in the pickups, with bar magnets not needing a specific spacing, but pole magnets being a little more sensitive to it. No idea if that's correct though!

xHymnal

huh? My thread? I always thought it was a bit of a myth to be fair, the magnets of a pickup have overlapping "magnetising" ranges so essentially the entire pickup will be able to pick up vibrations. That's how i've always thought of it anyhow

DeeTee

Oops! I meant @octatonic. I'd been salivating over your Gibson pickups for sale and obviously mixed the two up. Doh. Sorry.

usedtobe

Don't know how much difference it makes, sound-wise, probably none, but it can look 'wrong'. On some guitars, it looks worse than on others, and for that reason alone, I would use the 'correct' spaced pickup..

OilCityPickups

Have a look at how far an original 1972 Tele Deluxe strings miss the Wide Range poles by ... then tell me if it matters for anything other than the 'look'

octatonic

My take on it was a big issue then you've have a difference in amplitude when bending strings.

Maybe the string balances changes a bit- but it is so minimal to my ears, and that is pretty much all that matters to me.

If it is convenient then I try to match them up but I've used 53mm pickups on Les Pauls and 50mm on strats loads of times and the world hasn't ended.

DrBob

Well on the one hand yeah, I get where you're coming from given that many many people were cheerfully slapping non F spaced Buckers in the bridge position of their Fenders with stellar results.

But equally it seems odd to wilfully ignore the right pole spacing when making a bridge pickup specifically for that purpose. If you see what I mean ?

stickyfiddle

I find pole heights can make a big difference on single coils (vintage stagger is a bugger on strats with 12" radius) but F-spacing has never bothered me. 

My Cabronita has a wide bridge and narrow TV Jones pickups and it's absolutely fine. Likewise I had an old Jag with humbuckers that was absolutely fine.

xHymnal

DrBob said:

Well on the one hand yeah, I get where you're coming from given that many many people were cheerfully slapping non F spaced Buckers in the bridge position of their Fenders with stellar results.

But equally it seems odd to wilfully ignore the right pole spacing when making a bridge pickup specifically for that purpose. If you see what I mean ?

This. Oct makes a good point with bending too, though most pickups are quite balanced to take this into account and the difference between f and g spacing is only a matter of mm anyhow. Most guitars you look at the pickup poles don't line up exactly with the strings either

DeeTee

@DrBob - If I was looking to buy new, I'd totally agree. However, I tend to buy used, so wouldn't want to pass up a bargain just for the sake of spacing if it doesn't actually matter that much.

John_P

The best sounds I've had out of my custom 24 were after trying a couple of different pickups - the ones it ended up with, despite another 2 or 3 alternatives I tried are standard 50mm spacing.   So I'm convinced that it doesn't affect the sound - but it still bugs me.  I've just bought a set of the same p/ups in 53mm spacing so when I fit them I'll report back if I can hear any improvement apart from the cosmetics.

DeeTee

Interesting, let us know.

DeeTee

TheGuitarWeasel;100062" said:

Have a look at how far an original 1972 Tele Deluxe strings miss the Wide Range poles by ... then tell me if it matters for anything other than the 'look'

Thanks Ash! The reason I ask is my homebrew tele deluxe could do with some new pickups, but the bridge doesn't seem to be as wide as a proper deluxe.