Pickups for weird numbers of strings

DartmoorHedgehog

I'm thinking of building something for the slide challenge...  would have been a 3-string cigar-box type, but I was given one of the Works kits for my birthday last weekend and it's really not at all bad, so I'm wondering about leaving it as-is and making a 5-string one instead (for Keef-style open tuning without the bottom string).

So, what pickup should I look out for?  Cheap single-coils are usually Fender type with pole pieces for six strings - could just miss one I suppose.  Or does the spacing not really matter?  Are the ones without visible pole pieces (tele neck pickups, rail-type pickups etc) better for unconventional string counts?  The Works kit uses some sort of microphonic pickup but I'm thinking a magnetic pickup might be less feedback-prone if I ever fancy using it at a gig in future.

Sporky

I would think that lipsticks or rails would work fine.

DartmoorHedgehog

Thanks, so am I right in thinking (assuming) that those types of pickup have a uniform magnetic field with no "focussing" at points for strings?

(and also I'm assuming that 5 strings spaced evenly over a strat-type pickup would not work well but that may not be true at all, just seems "wrong")

Sporky

I reckon so.

Though I'm not sure there's massive variation as you move a bit away from a polepiece - otherwise doing a bend would result in a noticeable volume drop.

I'd give Ash a shout - the Oil City feller. He knows his stuff.

DartmoorHedgehog

Sporky said:

I'm not sure there's massive variation as you move a bit away from a polepiece - otherwise doing a bend would result in a noticeable volume drop.

That's very true.  So apart from looking a bit "wrong" (but this is to be a home-made-for-as-little-outlay-as-possible instrument after all!) it may be fine.

@theguitarweasel - what's your expert opinion?

ICBM

Five strings spread over a Strat pickup will work fine. Tele neck pickups do also have polepieces, but it doesn't matter. The field is not centred over each polepiece, it spreads out and fills in the gaps - if it didn't, the volume would drop when you bend a string on a Strat so it's halfway between two poles, as Sporky said.

Rickenbacker used standard 6-pole guitar pickups in the neck position of their basses for years - still do on the vintage reissue 4001 - and no-one seemed to notice!

DartmoorHedgehog

Cool - looks like anything will do then

Nomad

A Tele neck pickup will also look more like it's intrnded if it has the cover on.

DartmoorHedgehog

Nomad said:

A Tele neck pickup will also look more like it's intrnded if it has the cover on.

It would look more cosmetically right (or a danelectro type) but if a strat type would work just as well I'll just grab whatever I can pick up cheaply (hopefully I should be able to find something that looks nice AND is cheap ).

Paul_C

ICBM said:

Five strings spread over a Strat pickup will work fine. Tele neck pickups do also have polepieces, but it doesn't matter. The field is not centred over each polepiece, it spreads out and fills in the gaps - if it didn't, the volume would drop when you bend a string on a Strat so it's halfway between two poles, as Sporky said.

Rickenbacker used standard 6-pole guitar pickups in the neck position of their basses for years - still do on the vintage reissue 4001 - and no-one seemed to notice!

Fender Precision and Jazz bass pickups have pole pieces that sit either side of the string and IIRC some of the recent Bronco basses had Strat pickups in.

chickenbonejohn

Anything from 6 to 1 string across a regular guitar pickup will work fine. On my cigar box guitars I prefer to use plain cover pickups simply because it looks neater than having the "wrong" number of polepieces showing under the strings, but functionally it doesn't really matter. Here's a couple of mine to show the way I do it....
...on a 3 string box


..and on a 4 string aluminium reso....

DartmoorHedgehog

Nice looking guitars @chickenbonejohn

ecc83

Yeah, not critical. I don't know that anyone has done any serious investigation about how pickups work but I suspect it is more "variable reluctance" or "field disturbance" than a simple "dynamo" principle?

I fitted a Hot Rails to Lad's Strat copy many years ago. He seemed happy with it till the guitar got nicked in Paris!

Dave.

paulnb57

On a 3 string CBG folk often use half a PBass pup, cheap as chips for clunkers on the bay