Should the strings be exactly above pole pieces?

[avoriaz]

I know that the magnetic field is not just confined to the area immediately above the pole piece, but how far away laterally can the string be and still work efficiently?

I have a 8 year old Squier standard Strat made in Taiwan.

The strings are exactly central above each pole piece of the angled bridge pickup.

However the spacing of the pole pieces on the middle and neck pickups is wider than the strings.

On the middle pickup, the strings are over the pole pieces but not quite central on the G, B and high E strings.

The neck pickup is more out of line, and the high E string is actually slightly to the side of the pole piece.

The neck and bridge are all true and the top and bottom E strings are the correct distance in from the edge of the fret board so it is not caused by an out of true neck or out of position nut slot or bridge saddle.

The top E string does sound slightly quieter on the neck pickup. If I set the switch to neck pickup only, fret the top E on the 22nd fret, pluck it and then bend it so that it moves over the pole piece, the volume does increase noticeably.

I know I could angle the neck pickup vertically so that it is closer to the top E but that might bring it too close the middle strings.

The pole pieces are flat and not staggered.

I have looked at many different guitars and seen similar out of line pole pieces on both cheap and expensive guitars.

What is going on?

I hope I have explained this clearly.

Your comments and advice would be appreciated.

And yes, I know one solution is to play on the bridge pickup only.

[kuzi16]

i was under the impression that the strings should be exactly over the poles. ...at least for peak sound quality. the magnetic field isnt as strong between the pole pieces... but there is some there.


to totally contradict myself... I have a friend who has some standard spaced pickups in a guitar with a floyd rose. usually f spaced pickups would be used. Maybe its me, or that i havent had my hands on the guitar for more than 5 minutes but i cant tell a difference in sound quality or power to the notes.

[spud1950]

Seymour Duncan says:

"805. How important is the position of the pickup under the strings?
I’ve heard great sounding guitars with pickups here, there and everywhere. One of my favorite players Eddie Van Halen had his humbucker slated in his custom built Kramer guitar. You can see in old photo’s that the high E and low E strings didn’t exactly line up over each pole. Many players during the late ‘70’s and throughout the ‘80’s put Gibson spaced humbuckers under their Fender spaced strings. Even though the strings don’t exactly line up with the pole pieces, there’s usually enough stray magnetic field for the string to disturb. As the string vibrates it moves the magnetic field through the coil and generates alternating current that is amplified many times in the amplifier."

[ssstonelover]

Chris Kinman actually has 2 different spacing for some of his pickups...

Besides string spacing issues, there is the pole height issue (staggered or flat pole pieces) plus the general closeness of the pickup to the strings. I guess we can obsess about all this, but the reasonable thing is to dial in the overall height of pickup to string to compensate for any unevenness in sound on individual srings and also to affect the dynamics (see the Chirs Kinman site for more on this, tone section) and let our ears tell us what sounds good.

An alternative is to go to blade type pickups -- with their advantages and disadvantages.

[spud1950]

I just tested my guitar. I fretted a note and played it with the string right over the pole piece. I did the same thing with the string bent so that it is directly in between the two pole pieces. If there's a difference as far as volume, I can't really hear it. I agree with ssstonelover that getting the pickups adjusted right is more important then whether the strings are directly over the pole pieces.

[setain]

ssstonelover said:

An alternative is to go to blade type pickups -- with their advantages and disadvantages.

What would some of the disadvantages to blade pole pieces? I was under the impression that problems only occur when the blade is too thin, and the sound becomes weak.

[emoskacrewman]

I have an old 60's-70's MIJ Telestar thinline hollowbody that I recently put an Ibanez humbucker in, and the poles are too wide apart for any adjustment to fix. I've been looking at some blade pickups too and thought that might be the way to go... have any of you seen this type? I just found it on ebay, and it looks pretty cool, but I can't find any documentation.

cgi.ebay.com/MATCHED-CHROME-TRI-BAR-GUITAR-HUMBUCKER-PICKUPS_W0QQitemZ190187106028QQcmdZViewItem