|
Post by wgen on Aug 26, 2019 14:07:34 GMT -5
The title says it all, I was wondering what the real differences are, if any, and I ask you if you ever did some testing of examples of standard humbuckers and their Fender spaced counterparts. Does inductance vary somehow? Or do manufacturers pay attention to keep the response of the pickups the same? Thank you
|
|
|
Post by antigua on Sept 2, 2019 2:49:48 GMT -5
I've never tested F-spaced pickups, but I've tested, in a practical manner, holding an externally connected pickup in hand over moving guitar strings in order to see at what offset distance between the string and the pole piece that the output noticeably drops off. Over the pole piece there is a region of magnetism that is uniform enough to where the magnetic reluctance (resistance) path between the pole piece and the string doesn't change much, and therefore the output doesn't change much. You can tell that in everyday playing in the way that mild string bends don't cause any audible drop in volume. On the other hand, if you bend the strings to an extreme degree, with the neck pickup selected, such that the string is bent to be in between two pole pieces, you can here a slight drop off when running a clean signal. If you apply compression or gain, that small volume drop virtually disappears. If you select the bridge pickup, it's impossible to bend the string to an extent that it's no longer above the pole piece, so there is no volume drop at all. The string can be a bit out of alignment with the pole piece, and it will still produce a strong output, because the magnetic field spreads out above and around the pole piece, and is not a perfectly linear column that points straight up out of the pole piece.
Long story short, it's difficult to witness volume drops due to pole piece width or string alignment. Therefore I believe that F-spacing was conceived of as an aesthetic consideration, or possibly just as a marketing consideration; inventing problems where none existed in order to sell a solution. IIRC Seymour Duncan was the first to conceive of this selling point. Something I never see said on the Internet: "make you buy an f-spaced humbucker, or else your guitar will sound bad."
|
|
|
Post by wgen on Sept 2, 2019 5:17:46 GMT -5
Thank you very much. I was wondering if the RLC values may vary somewhat?
|
|
|
Post by antigua on Sept 2, 2019 13:00:40 GMT -5
Thank you very much. I was wondering if the RLC values may vary somewhat? In theory, if they keep the turn count the same, the coil are would be come wider by some small fraction, which would increase the inductance by a very small amount. They might put on fewer turns of wire to the F-spaced "trembucker", if for not other reason that to show a matching DC resistance, that might bright the inductance back down to what it would be other wise, if not less. So for all intents an purposes, it can be assumed that if the DC resistance is about the same, the L and C are probably also about the same.
|
|