Pickup poles not aligned

Fingers Mcginty

Question for yiz... I've upgraded pickups on my yammies and the pole pieces are not under the strings. In fact the high E is around 3 mil away from the center of the pole piece....Am i losing out on tone...or does it really matter much at all?

Voodu Child

For the most part, there are two main pickup spacings (ie between the first and last polepiece), Gibson & fender. Theres a difference of a couple of mm between the two. A lot of pickups will be available in either standard (gibson) or f-spacing.

Check youve gotten the right one

Voodu Child

Standard is 48mm, fender (f-spaced) is 51mm.

feylya

BTW, F-spacing is for guitars with Floyd bridges.

Voodu Child

Yeah, i should say the Gibson/Fender thing is going back donkeys years.

If in doubt check before buying.

Doctor J

You should be grand. The best sounding guitar I have has strings further than that away from the centre of the pole pieces.

Fingers Mcginty

voodoo_child wrote:

For the most part, there are two main pickup spacings (ie between the first and last polepiece), Gibson & fender. Theres a difference of a couple of mm between the two. A lot of pickups will be available in either standard (gibson) or f-spacing.

Check youve gotten the right one

Balls i must have got the wrong ones cause they're a good bit off

Doctor J

Use your ears and listen. If you can't hear a difference in level then it doesn't matter. Go and have a look at a Fender Strat, the pole pieces are not directly under the strings, never have been, but they sound alright, yeah?

fish-head

Wait til Eoin Madsen comes along and blows all your theories out of the water.

Fingers Mcginty

EX :On one of my guitars the stock pickup in the neck position has more clarity than the upgraded (misaligned) bridge pickup. when i say more clarity i mean that under heavy distortion the notes ring out more clearly than on the bridge pickup

Fingers Mcginty

apologies but have to bump this one...didn't really get a meaningful reply yet

feylya

Meaningful answer: It doesn't matter.

Fingers Mcginty

really?...ok

Patricide

Strangly i upgraded my yamaha with a super disto in the bridge and the poles didnt line up properly either, still sounds good though. If it sounds good to you therefore i say who cares.