One thing that I really like about P-pickups (I play bass) is that since they're in two pieces, the pickup height adjustment screws can be used to make each pole piece the same distance from the string.
yep, pretty much exactly as I had thought... mainly to compensate for the differing string volumes. I can remember back in my early days of playing on my first electric which was a Univox Les Paul copy. I can remember fiddling with all the adjustments to the point where the thing was barely playable because I didnt know anything at the time. this included raising the pole pieces so high that the strings stuck to them magnetically. back to the drawing board!
tbh, i 've been adjusting the pole pieces in my humbuckers for years now, it might be just in my head but it does make a difference in the balance of the tone.
Listen up... Do not adjust your pole pieces to to the fretboard radius. You adjust them to the output of the string gauges. Now, here's how to do it. First, make sure the pickups are level from side to side. Then plug your guitar into a recording program/daw with no effects and look at the DB meter. Then evenly pluck each string a few times and move from low to high. You can probably see that the low E and G strings are the loudest, the A and B strings second and the D and high E strings have the weakest outputs. This is because the strings with lower amounts of magnetic material have lower output and vice versa. Now you need to adjust the pole pieces so that all the strings have the same amount of volume on the DB meter. Adjust the side to side height only if you can't get the low E and the high E strings to be equal volume without one or the other pole pieces being too high or too low or too close to the strings. And then adjust the other pickups the same, but just keep the volume between all the pickups the same when you toggle between them so one isn't louder than the other. Sorry if it seems confusing, If you have questions feel free to ask. But here's what it should kinda look like. E = A == D === G = B == e ===
ive got a gretsch streamliner that sounds a little muddy even with the tone pot all the way up. Im going to try lowering the pickups a bit and raising the poles on the treble side and see if it brightens it up
also try changing the pickups - they came with dull humbuckers. Stock Gretsch Filtertrons are good or Duesenberg LittleToaster Mini-Humbucker are great
In February 1965 I bought my first electric guitar, a '57 sunburst Streamliner that had one of the first patent-pending Filtertrons in the neck position. It had no tone pot, just the old Gretsch three-way tone switch on the upper treble bout. However, it was bright enough, and I used it to rock with for many years. I knew nothing of adjusting pickup height, pole pieces, intonation (it had a Melita bridge), action, or neck relief, I just played it the way I bought it in abject ignorance, strung with Gretsch flat-wound mediums, .010s or .011s I suppose, the label on the round plastic container didn't say. The G string was wound, of course. As usual, I'm sorry I sold it years later.
So do left handed players need to adjust the staggered poles? meaning, now the A-string pole is flush with the cover while the B-string pole is higher. so how do you adjust them? excellent video. Did you know that rum makes your accent more pronounced? especially that good sipping kind...
Kinda on this topic, I've always wondered why is it that the bridge pickup on a Strat is usually if not always slanted with one end nearer the bridge? Would the pickup sound completely shit without it, or is it just to add some flavour and differentiation to the other 2 pickups?
thats true but is more that the ead strings can capture enought vibration, the more close you get to the bridge the less magnetic energy you capture since the vibration (of any) string is a lot more in their center than their ends.
I've heard some people say the Fender actually got that the wrong way round (although I personally don't worry about it). Also I have recently acquired a Yamaha MG series guitar that I'm restoring which has a straight, coil-splittable humbucker at the bridge and a reverse slant single coil at both the middle and neck positions. It's not yet in full working condition, so I can't really judge it right now.
@@littlebritain64 I hear part of why he played a right handed guitar upside down was because it reversed the slant on the pick-up and that's a bit of why his tone was so unique.
The string's volume depends on the fretboard's radius (pole/screw distance to the respective string), and on the respective string's magnetic force summed combination. Radiuses (respective distances) are different and string's magnetic forces (depending on size and magnetic material) are different too. The first 3 (E, B, G) plain strings and the 6th (E) wound string magnetic forces are more or less compensated by distances, so can be left approximately flat. But the situation with the two wound "mid" strings is reverse - the weakest 4th (D) string has the highest distance, and partly the same is with the 5th (A) string, so they must be seriously compensated - the 4th pole must be the highest, and the 5th pole must be a little bit higher too. Balancing must be done using the "string to string" + full chords method in a "clean" gain regime using your real amp and loudspeaker(s). Very subjective and depends on your style too. Just my 5 cents :)
Thanks. I thought there was something wrong with my new pickup. I saw this video, then realized some of my other pickups are staggered too; I just never noticed.
I know this video is old, but I never understood this. My strat is ams American Standard from 2013, came stock with the custom shop "Fat 50's" pickups. I love the tone, (especially through my PRRI with an old school 12" Jensen alnico blue speaker) but I can hear an audible volume pop on the G string which is staggered higher. Maybe I should lower all the pickups a bit. Its more noticeable if I make a mistake, or if the dynamics in my playing are off that day, but the G string especially seems to be louder than the others. The B string poles seem to be below the plastic cover, not even flush which is nice. Generally its not an issue but I figured I'd watch this video to find out why.
I noticed long time ago (lol) ZzTop solos any note played on the G string sounds louder than the rest. I had guessed that there must have been some screwing or unscrewing going on on his humbuckers to get the G string closer to pole piece.
Hi Colin I've been watching your channel for some time now and now it's becoming a daily visit and just wanted to say thanks for putting all these myths and jargon into black and white,much appreciation from geordie land.
I have staggered pole pieces on my Fender Jazz bass. But what if i was to replace the pickups for pickups with "flat" poles? How does that work while the guitar neck has a 12" radius? I enjoy your accent by the way!
I prefer flat fretboard radiuses purely on the tone. It's much more balanced without adjustments. Have a problem with my 5 string Sterling Stingray bass (has a 12" radius) where the B string is 500 percent louder than all the others. a 16" or 20" radius will help that
A lefty here. Is installing my newly purchased text mex pickups on my left handed Fender going to be an issue since they are staggered I'm assuming for right handed guitars?
Very informative. I knew quite a bit of this already, but the extra details and explanations made it much clearer for me. BTW (although this may be out of date by now) does BawBags (sp?) export to Japan?
I’ve never needed to adjust pole pieces individually on my guitars. Just moving it up and down works. I do have flat fingerboards on everything though.
Age and cost. Originally the magnets were all steep bevelled, then later shallower bevels were what was readily available. Flat magnets cost less than bevelled ones (one less step in the manufacturing process) so those appear on the cheaper instruments. So depending on what era of instrument the manufacturer is trying to evoke will change the magnets look. It offers practically no difference in sound, it's just a traditional looks thing and also a cost consideration.
If I use a scope and set all the amplitudes thatway, wouldnt it look more chaotic on the pickup than just a straight arch? Being that the frequencies and size and tension of the strings would effect the physical appearance of the staggering? I guess use a grease pencil to mark the peaks?
Woah woah woah. You can adjust the screws on the tops of humbuckers to adjust how loud each individual string is? Does that mean that you could adjust your tone at the pickup level to something more desirable than how they come out of the box?
+CSGuitars Huh. Didn't know that. Do you just do them to preference, or is there a method to it? I have a 2012 Ibanez AF75TDG; Ibanez.com tells me it has a radius of 305 mm. Also, thanks for replying. :D
+Jeremy Wiens set them to preference, listen for when all the strings sound balanced in sound and you are done. Try following the height pattern suggested for the single coils and work from there. You don't have to adjust the screws very far though, so no extreme height differences.
Hey friend, for a 9.25” Strat radius do you recommend staggered or flat for better sound? (I.e is it necessary to use staggered?) btw I am using 10-46 daddario nickel strings.
Yeah I have a 9.5 radius so I’m wondering the same since it’s kinda right in between 7.25 and 12 inches. I’m leaning towards flat but I would appreciate hearing someone’s opinion.
Help! How do I get my tele to have a stronger signal with the high e? As a fingerstyle player, hitting the low and high drowns out my high string more times than I'd like. How should I set it up? My Pickup poles are all flat.
My G string is too loud. The pole piece must be made for a wound G string. Can I lower the pole piece for the G string? If so, how? The HSS pickups are all staggered pole pieces, even the humbuckers.
Does the positioning of poles actually matter? I know it does to a certain extent but I’m asking because I play a 5 position string guitar but I, along with everyone else in the community, use a regular pickup with 6 pole positions. I was just wondering if perhaps a 5 pole position pickup would really even matter? I can certainly make a good case to say it does but if the quality is vastly improved, then I would definitely say it does matter!
So do you use a wound G mate? I bought a strat, with (I think, almost certain) a 9.5 radius, and bought a loaded pickguard (yet to place on the strat) which seem to have the classic stagger ie, quite high G pole. I know that the sound is important, but have heard unless you have a heavier gauge wound G, they break easily, but a heavy G is quite tough to bend.
Hello - very educational video! I still have my first guitar - a 1969 Fender Telecaster Bass. It has a single coil pick-up with staggered poles (original to the guitar). There doesn't appear to be any way to adjust the poles individually. I can can adjust the pick-up height as a whole. Are the poles just set the way they are forever, or is there a way to change the pole heights individually? Many thanks! -- Michael
My guitar tech returned my strat with staggered poles for neck and middle (bridge is JB4). I asked him to install 500k pots so I figured he staggered the poles because those strings would be too loud now that I had 500k pots.
*The bigger question... Why is it that the G string magnet the tallest, when it should be the shortest, as most people use a plain G string, which is stronger and louder than a wound G string, like they used to use back in the 50's? If your only answer is, "because that's how they did it in the 50's", then you should be using a wound G like they did in the 50's... Basically, a lot of people are using pickups designed for string sets with a wound G, yet most players use a plain G, so bottom line..., there are a ton of players with their A, D, B, and two E strings relatively balanced, but with a too loud and too bright G string... Personally, for Strat pickups, I prefer the DiMarzio Area Series, as they not only cancel hum while retaining that classic Strat tone, but the G string magnet is actually shorter like it's supposed to be...*
Colin, can you please direct me to where can i buy pickup magnets but just magnets? I had a spare duncan designed pickups so i pulled the magnet out and put it underneath my Carvin d26 bridge pickups with surprising results, however the magnet is obly for 6 strings and my carvin is 7, besides that, i would like to to it on ym neck HB and middle SC pickup as well. Its strange, the bridge pickup was very thin and on the high freq way too much and what the added magnet did, it just added a little body to the sound and smoothened out the hi end while still retaining the things i liked about it, the punch and fast low end, the output did not increase all that much but it is noticebly louder on clean channel so i want to mod all of them. Im really satisfied as ive been playin bare knuckler on my Prs guitars and to be hones, as anal i am about sound quality i feel there is no need to upgrade to "better" pickups as i have achieved what i needed.
Will it be dumb of me if I were to mix them up? I bought a staggered Dimarzio Virtual Solo. My current tokai has flat stock pickups. Flat neck and Mid then staggered bridge. Would that be good?
My D string has a huge pole and I ordered the guitar online... I was hoping there was a way to fix it. It seem very awkward being the only one sticking out....
I'm still wondering how changing the poles/screws in humbuckers affects the functionality or sound. I mean, I get that when you turn them up to the strings they'll deliver more output, basically. But does it make a difference when you change the height of all of them the same amount and basically make the rest of the pickup be farther away or closer to the strings? - So that is, for example, lowering the pickup, but them turning up the poles back up towards the strings. And the same for the opposite; Putting the entire pickup closer to the strings and turning the poles further down into the pickup. Does that matter any?... I have experimented with this occasionally, but it's hard to tell the difference when there's so much time in between with changing it, and I have no good way of recording clear audio, so...
You can change the balance of a pickup by adjusting its screws. Most pickups are made with a slug side and a screw side, though some, like a Super Distortion, just have 12 screws, and others like a Stag Mag, have 12 slugs. The slug side is a stronger tone with beefy output (almost sounds like a single coil), whereas the screw side tends to have more treble and bite, with less body and reduced output (this is why most splits are done to the slug side). By adjusting the screws, you can change the balance of the slug and screw side. Generally, taller screws: more bite. Shorter screws: less output, more full, starts to sound more and more like the slug on its own. You can even go extreme and completely remove the screws (or replace them with non-magnetic screw like zinc or nylon), and then you have something that has an almost single coil sound and with relatively low output, but with a dummy coil to cancel hum.
Colin, i have a problem with the single coil of my Cort X-11, i use this pickup for clean stuff (arpeggios, jazz or funk, etc.) but one of the poles (sorry, my english sucks xD) is far from the string because of my picking attack Is it a problem for my sound?
I put a new scratch plate in.and I'm not sure witch way I take them out on the treble there is 3 lower staggered pins the other side more higher what u think thk
I have flat pole pickups in my partscaster and the high E string is a noticeably quieter output than all the other strings. Anyone know why this might be? Could it be a bum set of pickups? I notice it especially on the neck pickup but I think it might be on the others as well, I'd have to double check. Anyway, thanks for the video, Colin. I love this channel.
Just to begin, thanks for the video, then consider that, despite my nickname, I am italian, so I hope that everything since now on is written clearly enough. Should it be that I have to obtain a let's say, 60-6000 Hz or so on perfectly straight level sound using an oscilloscope, and then let the amplifier and the loudspeaker building the tone? Ok, I know it sounds a little maniac, but still I don't know how to balance correctly the poles to obtain a well balanced sound on all frequences. Insults and advices welcome😄!
I have a guitar with humbicking pickups that are both flat and staggered. I adjusted the flat poles just right, but how do I properly adjust the screw poles to the correct height?
My somewhat intoxicated and totally music oblivious friend thought it was a good idea to push in (probably with some force) EVERY single pole on all 3 pickups on my yamaha SC300T...is it ruined now:? (I bet he thought it was weird that poles were not uniform...)XD
forgive me I'm kinda new to this, but can the pole pieces be adjusted?? I'm not an expert admittedly, but can the poles be pushed out "higher" through the back "bottom" of the pickup?or are they glued in place?
No they can't. Single coil pickups are traditionally constructed from two fiber boards, the bottom surface and the top surface, and these are held the correct distance apart by the pole pieces. In fact the hole spacing on the top board is usually slightly wider than on the bottom so that the poles splay locking the whole construct in position. Pushing a pole piece up would push it out of the bottom board, compromising the structural integrity of the pickup. Furthermore there are thousands of turns of very thin copper wire wrapped directly around the poles, moving the poles would risk damaging the wire rendering the pickup useless. On top of that you'd be changing the magnet's relation with the coil which would have consequences for the induced signal.
It depends. If you have a ceramic pickup, then no (well, actually, let me get back to you on that). If you have a fiber bobbin, then no. But if you have an alnico pickup made on plastic bobbins, then you can actually push the magnets around. That sounds like a very specific requirement, but Fender is one of the companies that makes most of its pickups, whether ceramic or alnico, with plastic bobbins, and Fender is one of the companies that still does the disgustingly pronounced vintaged stagger, so chances are good that they're the ones that most commonly need adjustment. It's pretty easy to identify pickup construction visually. If your poles are shiny, chances are that you have steel poles with a bar magnet underneath. If your poles are a dull, dark gray, and the dead giveaway is no magnet underneath, chances are that you have alnico. Plastic bobbins are smooth and black, whereas fiber bobbins are a bit rough. The reason why you can't move pole pieces on a fiber bobbin is because they're held together with glue and wire is wound directly around the magnets. In a plastic bobbin, the plastic forms the structure for the pickup and pole pieces and wire go on the plastic. You can even pop out all the magnets and you just have a coil. ANYWAY, back to the ceramic pickups with a bar magnet underneath. With a razor blade to score the adhesive and a fine flat head screwdriver, it should be pretty easy to remove the magnet from underneath. If you do so, you can pop out the steel pole pieces from the bobbin, and you can easily pop in some Alnico rod magnets from a place like Tone Kraft, provided that you can find magnets the size of the steel poles removed. And chances are pretty good that you can find magnets that fit, since bobbins tend to be standard sized. Then, you just pop them in, making sure they're all facing the correct direction. So you can easily convert a ceramic pickup into an alnico pickup with your preferred stagger for the price of about $10 worth of magnets.
Long after this was posted, but in reply, you can't adjust fibre board pickups. However, most of fenders standard pickups have plastic bobbins which can be adjusted because the magnetic pole runs through a tube. Generally, a small amount of wax from the wax-potting hold them firm. You can push the magnets up and down using something like a pair of pointy nose pliers. You won't harm the pickup, especially if you leave the pickup covers on whilst your doing it. ☺
The radius of a neck has nothing to do with adjusted pole pieces or flat ones. The magnetic Field of a pickup is like a cloud all around it and gets weaker as you go far away from the low E and the high E strings. Staggered or adjusted pole pieces is the best way to get uneven sound between your strings. Moreover, it's the best way to get string warble if you raise your pickups too close to the strings.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #30 ДВА В ОДНОМ [Один человек]• Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nrXy15orKhY/mqdefault.jpg)
my eyes were on the whiskey. he drank it, little by little
pharmavenom2 you're an ad
why not, whisky is great
Cloven Hoof is spice Rum, not whisky
Scottish folks drink scotch...and us irish drink whiskey. But they are both great.
Scotch is whisky (no 'E' in the way they spell it). It is more often single rather than blended malt, which is harsher to the palate.
peckups
khukuri cross This whole thread is a joke XD
pol picis
One thing that I really like about P-pickups (I play bass) is that since they're in two pieces, the pickup height adjustment screws can be used to make each pole piece the same distance from the string.
I staggered into a pole while leaving the pub once...
ha ha , yeah I have tried that too.
😆
I staggered into a piece one night but was too drunk to do anything about it.
Now do a vid on how to get luscious hair
Yes please
Tiege Hanley and fretboard conditioner.
I would seriously watch this
George Hill Didn't expect to see the Tiege Hanley meme on this channel.
Timmy G. fuck yeahhh. i love me some tiege
yep, pretty much exactly as I had thought... mainly to compensate for the differing string volumes. I can remember back in my early days of playing on my first electric which was a Univox Les Paul copy. I can remember fiddling with all the adjustments to the point where the thing was barely playable because I didnt know anything at the time. this included raising the pole pieces so high that the strings stuck to them magnetically. back to the drawing board!
I remember doing similar, daft things like that myself. No better way to learn than by making a complete arse of it.
didn't even know you could raise and lower the poles on humbuckers, I shall try this out now.
I really love these videos breaking down a small topic that people might not have necessarily thought of or just didnt really pay any attention to
Great explanation Colin. All your vids are brilliant. Cheers!
tbh, i 've been adjusting the pole pieces in my humbuckers for years now, it might be just in my head but it does make a difference in the balance of the tone.
Listen up...
Do not adjust your pole pieces to to the fretboard radius. You adjust them to the output of the string gauges.
Now, here's how to do it.
First, make sure the pickups are level from side to side. Then plug your guitar into a recording program/daw with no effects and look at the DB meter. Then evenly pluck each string a few times and move from low to high. You can probably see that the low E and G strings are the loudest, the A and B strings second and the D and high E strings have the weakest outputs. This is because the strings with lower amounts of magnetic material have lower output and vice versa. Now you need to adjust the pole pieces so that all the strings have the same amount of volume on the DB meter. Adjust the side to side height only if you can't get the low E and the high E strings to be equal volume without one or the other pole pieces being too high or too low or too close to the strings. And then adjust the other pickups the same, but just keep the volume between all the pickups the same when you toggle between them so one isn't louder than the other.
Sorry if it seems confusing, If you have questions feel free to ask. But here's what it should kinda look like.
E =
A ==
D ===
G =
B ==
e ===
Very informative video. Many guitar players are unaware of why the single coil pickup poles are staggered and that you can adjust humbuckers.
ive got a gretsch streamliner that sounds a little muddy even with the tone pot all the way up. Im going to try lowering the pickups a bit and raising the poles on the treble side and see if it brightens it up
also try changing the pickups - they came with dull humbuckers. Stock Gretsch Filtertrons are good or Duesenberg LittleToaster Mini-Humbucker are great
In February 1965 I bought my first electric guitar, a '57 sunburst Streamliner that had one of the first patent-pending Filtertrons in the neck position. It had no tone pot, just the old Gretsch three-way tone switch on the upper treble bout. However, it was bright enough, and I used it to rock with for many years.
I knew nothing of adjusting pickup height, pole pieces, intonation (it had a Melita bridge), action, or neck relief, I just played it the way I bought it in abject ignorance, strung with Gretsch flat-wound mediums, .010s or .011s I suppose, the label on the round plastic container didn't say. The G string was wound, of course.
As usual, I'm sorry I sold it years later.
Proud to be a fellow Scotsman , Well done mate , we should definitely jam , were probably not that far away :)
I didnt even realize I was curious about this until I saw the title of this video - excellent topic!
I really enjoy your tech talk. You answer many of questions I have & ones I hadn’t thought of yet.
wound G strings will always be the best
You can get used to that aswel. You wouldn't believe how fast you adapt to fat strings and they usually sound a lot warmer
i bend alot i have no issues
Agree. I imagine I’d prefer b and e wound as well if such a thing existed.
A lot of acoustics have it
Thanks for the explanation Professor Colin! 😉👍
So do left handed players need to adjust the staggered poles? meaning, now the A-string pole is flush with the cover while the B-string pole is higher. so how do you adjust them? excellent video. Did you know that rum makes your accent more pronounced? especially that good sipping kind...
Great! Now I'm reading your video titles in your voice!!
God damn this is the best most educational channel about guitars
Love your videos!!! Always so informative and fun. Thanks for being you!
Kinda on this topic, I've always wondered why is it that the bridge pickup on a Strat is usually if not always slanted with one end nearer the bridge? Would the pickup sound completely shit without it, or is it just to add some flavour and differentiation to the other 2 pickups?
D Wright - METALHEAD i think it is slanted so there is more treble on the gbe strings and less of it on the ead strings
thats true but is more that the ead strings can capture enought vibration, the more close you get to the bridge the less magnetic energy you capture since the vibration (of any) string is a lot more in their center than their ends.
I've heard some people say the Fender actually got that the wrong way round (although I personally don't worry about it). Also I have recently acquired a Yamaha MG series guitar that I'm restoring which has a straight, coil-splittable humbucker at the bridge and a reverse slant single coil at both the middle and neck positions. It's not yet in full working condition, so I can't really judge it right now.
Interesting. Wich system Jimi Hendrix adopted?
@@littlebritain64 I hear part of why he played a right handed guitar upside down was because it reversed the slant on the pick-up and that's a bit of why his tone was so unique.
The string's volume depends on the fretboard's radius (pole/screw distance to the respective string), and on the respective string's magnetic force summed combination. Radiuses (respective distances) are different and string's magnetic forces (depending on size and magnetic material) are different too. The first 3 (E, B, G) plain strings and the 6th (E) wound string magnetic forces are more or less compensated by distances, so can be left approximately flat. But the situation with the two wound "mid" strings is reverse - the weakest 4th (D) string has the highest distance, and partly the same is with the 5th (A) string, so they must be seriously compensated - the 4th pole must be the highest, and the 5th pole must be a little bit higher too. Balancing must be done using the "string to string" + full chords method in a "clean" gain regime using your real amp and loudspeaker(s). Very subjective and depends on your style too. Just my 5 cents :)
Another Great Informative Vid Colin. I always wondered about this.
Cheers Mate
4:09 NO! NO FAFFING WITH EXTRA CRAP! Rail-style pickups FTW. Thanks for the vid, too.
Thanks.
I thought there was something wrong with my new pickup. I saw this video, then realized some of my other pickups are staggered too; I just never noticed.
Thanks for this video, I learned something new about guitars. Really great content, keep it up!
I came here for the info and the accent cleaned up my soul inside out 🎉
this is really informative, been thinking about it for a while. thanks Colin!
No idea if it’s the accent of confidence in what’s being said. But man was that enjoyable and educational!
I know this video is old, but I never understood this. My strat is ams American Standard from 2013, came stock with the custom shop "Fat 50's" pickups. I love the tone, (especially through my PRRI with an old school 12" Jensen alnico blue speaker) but I can hear an audible volume pop on the G string which is staggered higher. Maybe I should lower all the pickups a bit. Its more noticeable if I make a mistake, or if the dynamics in my playing are off that day, but the G string especially seems to be louder than the others. The B string poles seem to be below the plastic cover, not even flush which is nice. Generally its not an issue but I figured I'd watch this video to find out why.
the beverage behind you, "cloven hoof" what may i ask is it? whiskey? scotch? and how would you rate it?
That accent alone got you the sub.
Astonishingly informative. Give that man a bottle of his favorite spiced rum. I see it's Cloven Hoof.
I noticed long time ago (lol) ZzTop solos any note played on the G string sounds louder than the rest. I had guessed that there must have been some screwing or unscrewing going on on his humbuckers to get the G string closer to pole piece.
Do a staggered humbucker versus non staggered so we can hear the difference
Hi Colin I've been watching your channel for some time now and now it's becoming a daily visit and just wanted to say thanks for putting all these myths and jargon into black and white,much appreciation from geordie land.
I have staggered pole pieces on my Fender Jazz bass. But what if i was to replace the pickups for pickups with "flat" poles? How does that work while the guitar neck has a 12" radius? I enjoy your accent by the way!
Brilliant video! Thanks Colin!
excellent. completely new information for me. thank you.
Thanks for the video I’ve always wondered this
I had literally no idea why you'd want staggered pole pieces, it makes so much sense now!
Really useful stuff this, I appreciate it being explained so it's easy to understand too!
I always wondered what was up with the uneven pole pieces. Didn't know it was a feature. I thought it was a fuck-up.
When can we buy the "He who hingeth aboot" t-shirts?
Why don't you try speaking to Rabbie Burns? *holds up fiver*
I prefer flat fretboard radiuses purely on the tone. It's much more balanced without adjustments.
Have a problem with my 5 string Sterling Stingray bass (has a 12" radius) where the B string is 500 percent louder than all the others. a 16" or 20" radius will help that
A lefty here. Is installing my newly purchased text mex pickups on my left handed Fender going to be an issue since they are staggered I'm assuming for right handed guitars?
Radius it is! That's what I figured. Cool vid man. 🤘🏼💀
Intelligent and well researched video. I remember an idiot claiming it was all a marketing ploy -_-
ALWAYS informative!! Thx Colin!!
Very informative. I knew quite a bit of this already, but the extra details and explanations made it much clearer for me. BTW (although this may be out of date by now) does BawBags (sp?) export to Japan?
I’ve never needed to adjust pole pieces individually on my guitars. Just moving it up and down works. I do have flat fingerboards on everything though.
Very informative, thank you.
Great video ... here's a question.. Why do some Fender pickups have beveled magnets and not others ? (I own both btw)
Age and cost.
Originally the magnets were all steep bevelled, then later shallower bevels were what was readily available. Flat magnets cost less than bevelled ones (one less step in the manufacturing process) so those appear on the cheaper instruments.
So depending on what era of instrument the manufacturer is trying to evoke will change the magnets look. It offers practically no difference in sound, it's just a traditional looks thing and also a cost consideration.
I couldn’t stop checking the level of the cloven hoof in the glass. Haha!
If I use a scope and set all the amplitudes thatway, wouldnt it look more chaotic on the pickup than just a straight arch? Being that the frequencies and size and tension of the strings would effect the physical appearance of the staggering? I guess use a grease pencil to mark the peaks?
Woah woah woah. You can adjust the screws on the tops of humbuckers to adjust how loud each individual string is? Does that mean that you could adjust your tone at the pickup level to something more desirable than how they come out of the box?
+Jeremy Wiens yeah, of course.
That's the whole thing about humbuckers. You set them to match your guitar.
+CSGuitars Huh. Didn't know that. Do you just do them to preference, or is there a method to it? I have a 2012 Ibanez AF75TDG; Ibanez.com tells me it has a radius of 305 mm.
Also, thanks for replying. :D
+Jeremy Wiens set them to preference, listen for when all the strings sound balanced in sound and you are done.
Try following the height pattern suggested for the single coils and work from there. You don't have to adjust the screws very far though, so no extreme height differences.
Hey friend, for a 9.25” Strat radius do you recommend staggered or flat for better sound? (I.e is it necessary to use staggered?) btw I am using 10-46 daddario nickel strings.
Yeah I have a 9.5 radius so I’m wondering the same since it’s kinda right in between 7.25 and 12 inches. I’m leaning towards flat but I would appreciate hearing someone’s opinion.
GREAT video, good sir!
THX, man!
I always wondered that.
Perfect explanation!
great video, do you think for strat guitar, vintage staggered ou flat pole pickups ?
Help! How do I get my tele to have a stronger signal with the high e? As a fingerstyle player, hitting the low and high drowns out my high string more times than I'd like. How should I set it up? My Pickup poles are all flat.
Great vid! Great channel! I need more.
My G string is too loud. The pole piece must be made for a wound G string. Can I lower the pole piece for the G string? If so, how? The HSS pickups are all staggered pole pieces, even the humbuckers.
Fun pole piece fact - Billy Corgan liked flat pole pieces on his 70s starts so he could have the pickup higher to get that little bit of extra crunch.
Siamese Dream was recorded using a Strat with Lace Sensors.
Michael Carey correct but I don't believe Gish was.
That ending made me laugh so hard.... thanks!
Peck ops!
Gus Ferreira Thenks four wechin thez vedeio
Does the positioning of poles actually matter? I know it does to a certain extent but I’m asking because I play a 5 position string guitar but I, along with everyone else in the community, use a regular pickup with 6 pole positions. I was just wondering if perhaps a 5 pole position pickup would really even matter?
I can certainly make a good case to say it does but if the quality is vastly improved, then I would definitely say it does matter!
So do you use a wound G mate? I bought a strat, with (I think, almost certain) a 9.5 radius, and bought a loaded pickguard (yet to place on the strat) which seem to have the classic stagger ie, quite high G pole. I know that the sound is important, but have heard unless you have a heavier gauge wound G, they break easily, but a heavy G is quite tough to bend.
wow, I learned a lot, thanks man!
Hello - very educational video! I still have my first guitar - a 1969 Fender Telecaster Bass. It has a single coil pick-up with staggered poles (original to the guitar). There doesn't appear to be any way to adjust the poles individually. I can can adjust the pick-up height as a whole. Are the poles just set the way they are forever, or is there a way to change the pole heights individually? Many thanks! -- Michael
I swear this guy has the best extra scenes ever
Oh boy a new post!
I can file the poles of the third and fourth string of a curved radius pickup to later place on a guitar with a 12 radius neck... what would happen?
I never saw people screwing with humbucker peckup pole PCs, but will give it a try
My guitar tech returned my strat with staggered poles for neck and middle (bridge is JB4). I asked him to install 500k pots so I figured he staggered the poles because those strings would be too loud now that I had 500k pots.
*The bigger question... Why is it that the G string magnet the tallest, when it should be the shortest, as most people use a plain G string, which is stronger and louder than a wound G string, like they used to use back in the 50's? If your only answer is, "because that's how they did it in the 50's", then you should be using a wound G like they did in the 50's... Basically, a lot of people are using pickups designed for string sets with a wound G, yet most players use a plain G, so bottom line..., there are a ton of players with their A, D, B, and two E strings relatively balanced, but with a too loud and too bright G string... Personally, for Strat pickups, I prefer the DiMarzio Area Series, as they not only cancel hum while retaining that classic Strat tone, but the G string magnet is actually shorter like it's supposed to be...*
Thank you, I am now aware if I shouls get flat pools or staggered pools
always wondered why humbuckers had screw poles in them, nice one
Colin, can you please direct me to where can i buy pickup magnets but just magnets?
I had a spare duncan designed pickups so i pulled the magnet out and put it underneath my Carvin d26 bridge pickups with surprising results, however the magnet is obly for 6 strings and my carvin is 7, besides that, i would like to to it on ym neck HB and middle SC pickup as well. Its strange, the bridge pickup was very thin and on the high freq way too much and what the added magnet did, it just added a little body to the sound and smoothened out the hi end while still retaining the things i liked about it, the punch and fast low end, the output did not increase all that much but it is noticebly louder on clean channel so i want to mod all of them. Im really satisfied as ive been playin bare knuckler on my Prs guitars and to be hones, as anal i am about sound quality i feel there is no need to upgrade to "better" pickups as i have achieved what i needed.
Will it be dumb of me if I were to mix them up? I bought a staggered Dimarzio Virtual Solo. My current tokai has flat stock pickups. Flat neck and Mid then staggered bridge. Would that be good?
The defference is that staggered peckups will peck up more output from the meddle strengs! =D
My D string has a huge pole and I ordered the guitar online... I was hoping there was a way to fix it. It seem very awkward being the only one sticking out....
I'm still wondering how changing the poles/screws in humbuckers affects the functionality or sound.
I mean, I get that when you turn them up to the strings they'll deliver more output, basically. But does it make a difference when you change the height of all of them the same amount and basically make the rest of the pickup be farther away or closer to the strings? - So that is, for example, lowering the pickup, but them turning up the poles back up towards the strings.
And the same for the opposite; Putting the entire pickup closer to the strings and turning the poles further down into the pickup.
Does that matter any?... I have experimented with this occasionally, but it's hard to tell the difference when there's so much time in between with changing it, and I have no good way of recording clear audio, so...
You can change the balance of a pickup by adjusting its screws. Most pickups are made with a slug side and a screw side, though some, like a Super Distortion, just have 12 screws, and others like a Stag Mag, have 12 slugs. The slug side is a stronger tone with beefy output (almost sounds like a single coil), whereas the screw side tends to have more treble and bite, with less body and reduced output (this is why most splits are done to the slug side). By adjusting the screws, you can change the balance of the slug and screw side. Generally, taller screws: more bite. Shorter screws: less output, more full, starts to sound more and more like the slug on its own. You can even go extreme and completely remove the screws (or replace them with non-magnetic screw like zinc or nylon), and then you have something that has an almost single coil sound and with relatively low output, but with a dummy coil to cancel hum.
Colin, i have a problem with the single coil of my Cort X-11, i use this pickup for clean stuff (arpeggios, jazz or funk, etc.) but one of the poles (sorry, my english sucks xD) is far from the string because of my picking attack
Is it a problem for my sound?
When you play, how does it sound? If you think it sounds good, all is well!
I put a new scratch plate in.and I'm not sure witch way I take them out on the treble there is 3 lower staggered pins the other side more higher what u think thk
I have flat pole pickups in my partscaster and the high E string is a noticeably quieter output than all the other strings. Anyone know why this might be? Could it be a bum set of pickups? I notice it especially on the neck pickup but I think it might be on the others as well, I'd have to double check.
Anyway, thanks for the video, Colin. I love this channel.
I'm not sure what that ending was, but I enjoyed it.
Just to begin, thanks for the video, then consider that, despite my nickname, I am italian, so I hope that everything since now on is written clearly enough.
Should it be that I have to obtain a let's say, 60-6000 Hz or so on perfectly straight level sound using an oscilloscope, and then let the amplifier and the loudspeaker building the tone? Ok, I know it sounds a little maniac, but still I don't know how to balance correctly the poles to obtain a well balanced sound on all frequences.
Insults and advices welcome😄!
I have a guitar with humbicking pickups that are both flat and staggered. I adjusted the flat poles just right, but how do I properly adjust the screw poles to the correct height?
fun and informational. Thanks!
#gayforColin
definitely.
damn it, you beat me to it
#cut4Colin
Thanks!
but what about garret J peters
My somewhat intoxicated and totally music oblivious friend thought it was a good idea to push in (probably with some force) EVERY single pole on all 3 pickups on my yamaha SC300T...is it ruined now:? (I bet he thought it was weird that poles were not uniform...)XD
At first I thought he said "poo pieces" and now I can't unhear it.
Sometimes I think I'm a little boy trapped in a man's body.
What's up with his website? Does he actually make and sell guitars or Hwhat
forgive me I'm kinda new to this, but can the pole pieces be adjusted??
I'm not an expert admittedly, but can the poles be pushed out "higher" through the back "bottom" of the pickup?or are they glued in place?
No they can't.
Single coil pickups are traditionally constructed from two fiber boards, the bottom surface and the top surface, and these are held the correct distance apart by the pole pieces. In fact the hole spacing on the top board is usually slightly wider than on the bottom so that the poles splay locking the whole construct in position.
Pushing a pole piece up would push it out of the bottom board, compromising the structural integrity of the pickup.
Furthermore there are thousands of turns of very thin copper wire wrapped directly around the poles, moving the poles would risk damaging the wire rendering the pickup useless.
On top of that you'd be changing the magnet's relation with the coil which would have consequences for the induced signal.
CSGuitars
ok thank you for the info 👍
It depends. If you have a ceramic pickup, then no (well, actually, let me get back to you on that). If you have a fiber bobbin, then no. But if you have an alnico pickup made on plastic bobbins, then you can actually push the magnets around. That sounds like a very specific requirement, but Fender is one of the companies that makes most of its pickups, whether ceramic or alnico, with plastic bobbins, and Fender is one of the companies that still does the disgustingly pronounced vintaged stagger, so chances are good that they're the ones that most commonly need adjustment.
It's pretty easy to identify pickup construction visually. If your poles are shiny, chances are that you have steel poles with a bar magnet underneath. If your poles are a dull, dark gray, and the dead giveaway is no magnet underneath, chances are that you have alnico. Plastic bobbins are smooth and black, whereas fiber bobbins are a bit rough. The reason why you can't move pole pieces on a fiber bobbin is because they're held together with glue and wire is wound directly around the magnets. In a plastic bobbin, the plastic forms the structure for the pickup and pole pieces and wire go on the plastic. You can even pop out all the magnets and you just have a coil. ANYWAY, back to the ceramic pickups with a bar magnet underneath. With a razor blade to score the adhesive and a fine flat head screwdriver, it should be pretty easy to remove the magnet from underneath. If you do so, you can pop out the steel pole pieces from the bobbin, and you can easily pop in some Alnico rod magnets from a place like Tone Kraft, provided that you can find magnets the size of the steel poles removed. And chances are pretty good that you can find magnets that fit, since bobbins tend to be standard sized. Then, you just pop them in, making sure they're all facing the correct direction. So you can easily convert a ceramic pickup into an alnico pickup with your preferred stagger for the price of about $10 worth of magnets.
Paul Mitten (mbvglider)
I appreciate the info
Long after this was posted, but in reply, you can't adjust fibre board pickups. However, most of fenders standard pickups have plastic bobbins which can be adjusted because the magnetic pole runs through a tube. Generally, a small amount of wax from the wax-potting hold them firm. You can push the magnets up and down using something like a pair of pointy nose pliers. You won't harm the pickup, especially if you leave the pickup covers on whilst your doing it. ☺
The radius of a neck has nothing to do with adjusted pole pieces or flat ones. The magnetic Field of a pickup is like a cloud all around it and gets weaker as you go far away from the low E and the high E strings. Staggered or adjusted pole pieces is the best way to get uneven sound between your strings. Moreover, it's the best way to get string warble if you raise your pickups too close to the strings.
Does it change or lose the tone went we adjust the Poles? cause I got 7 string electric guitar