Tele Lead Pickup Staggering?

[ken]

Hello all,

I just got a request from a customer for a Tele lead pickup with what he calls '1969 stagger' magnets, supposedly every magnet in the pickup is a different length. The only magnet staggers I know of for the Tele is the 'Broadcaster flat' and the pickups with the D and G magnets longer than the other four, which are all the same length. Is this anything like the 1960's Strat staggering setup?

Thank you,
Ken

[Spence]

It's no different from a Strat stagger. Some people did push the poles in and out to try and change the string response. That accounts for a lot of bolloxed single coils.
If your customer knows more about this than you, he's either full of shit or he should make the damned thing himself.

[ken]

Actually it's my own fault, sometimes I get some pretty weirdo requests from a few of my more obsessive customers. It seems almost like I'm playing 'stump the chump' with some of these guys I try to check up as much as I can, but all I found about this was a photo in A.R. Duchossoir's Tele book in the lower left corner of page 60.

I have owned many Teles from the mid '50s to today, including a '68, a '70 and a '72, and I have never owned one with 'all staggered' lead pickup magnets. All of these had only the D and G magnets staggered.

Thank you,
Ken

[Spence]

Weed out the weirdos

There's a lot of strange people hanging around the guitar world. Some latch onto pickup makers and make their live a freakin' misery. You get to recognize the signs with time and learn to weed them out before they start haunting you. I've learned the hard way not to pander to people who swear they have seen a pickup where all the magnets are different lengths etc.. I always offer them an alternative number to call; usually a self help group and never hear from them again.

Also, sometimes you have to conceed that you don't know everything. Yet.

[ken]

I know what you mean, whoever said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing must have met some of my customers. I had a couple spend too much time at Harmony Central or something, every time some 'new idea' came up they had to have it. The last time, they wanted their pickup magnet top ends ground almost to points 'to focus the sound'. No lie. I really wanted to grind their heads to points by the time they left.

I don't know nothin', and I admit it. A lot. Nothing wrong with that.

I just asked if anyone knew about these pickups since I never owned a Tele with 'all magnets staggered' lead pickups. Just so you know, it seems they DO exist - look in A.R. Duchossoir's book, "The Fender Telecaster", on page 60. All I wanted to know was if anyone ever saw one of these up close, and if anyone had any magnet length measurements for it. I came here with my question because if anyone would know that stuff one of you guys probably would.

Ken

[David Schwab]

There's a lot of strange people hanging around the guitar world. Some latch onto pickup makers and make their live a freakin' misery.

Some players think that gear will give them the tone they are lacking, or even the talent!

A good player can get their tone from just about anything... or at least a good tone.

I think guitar players can be more of a pain in that regard... it's all about vintage gear, and what's been done to death already!

Bass players seem to be more open to new stuff.. but then again we currently have this "me too" obsession with Jazz Basses and tube amps. <yawn>

[Spence]

Easy tiger !

Ken said

"I don't know nothin', and I admit it. A lot. Nothing wrong with that.

I just asked if anyone knew about these pickups since I never owned a Tele with 'all magnets staggered' lead pickups. Just so you know, it seems they DO exist - look in A.R. Duchossoir's book, "The Fender Telecaster", on page 60. All I wanted to know was if anyone ever saw one of these up close, and if anyone had any magnet length measurements for it. I came here with my question because if anyone would know that stuff one of you guys probably would."

Don't be getting all angry and stuff. I was sympathising with you. these people think you know everything ( except they know more ) and you just have to tell them you don't know what the hell they're blathering on about sometimes.

I have the Tele book by Duchossosir by the way; well worn and well familiarized with. Also have the Blackguard book. I was just pointing out to you that the magnets, though staggered are not all different lengths.

[David Schwab]

The last time, they wanted their pickup magnet top ends ground almost to points 'to focus the sound'. No lie. I really wanted to grind their heads to points by the time they left.

That's funny! Just tell them that once the strings become magnetized it doesn't matter all that much... you can actually remove the magnets and still get sound.



I had a PITA customer with a '72 Tele that he wanted set up for slide playing. He wanted his nut absolutely flat, and complained that the strings were different heights (and believe me, you couldn't see it!) I tried to explain that the strings are different thicknesses too.. dumb ass! All he could do was play Stevie Ray licks, and stuff from a "Learn to play the blues" video. He also wanted the heaviest strings I could get, which were .014's, and he complained those weren't heavy enough!

In the end I got so annoyed with him I told him to learn to play first, and then come back and see me. I came real close to smacking him in the head with his guitar! And I'm a peace loving man!

[Mark Hammer]

Here's what I find confusing.

In a Strat pickup, the magnets in the unwound strings are lower, so as to lean towards a wider sensing area, and not be preferential to whatever is going on immediately above the polepiece. The intent is not to make the polepieces for the wound strings more sensitive by bringing them closer to the strings, but to balance out the tonal response of the various strings by making the unwounds a little more bassy and not as tinny as they might be otherwise.

That property, of course, relies on unrestricted access of the field to sense string movement nut-ward and bridge-ward of the polepiece and coil. So how on God's green earth would variations in polepiece height and length in a Tele bridge pickup, with that big old bridge plate surrounding it, and that plate underneath it, result in better treble-to-bass balance?

I don't get it.

[David Schwab]

Mark, that stagger was designed for the strings used at the time... wound thirds, and much heavier than used today. The plain strings at the time probably over powered the wound strings.

This has always been my complaint with staggered magnets. To me, they don't sound even, and I'm sure at the time that was the intention.

Except for the people who don't want things to change, there's no reason for the "vintage" stagger, and since we aren't using the strings the Strat shipped with in the 50's, you aren't going to get the real "vintage" tone of the stagger anyway.

I'll take a blade any day!

[ken]

Personally, I think Mark is right, with all that metal surrounding the pickup 'Strat staggering' the lead pickup would be a waste of time. I do know that the 'D and G' staggering works somewhat there, but I prefer the flush pole pickups because they are well balanced with modern gauges. The staggered mags balanced the output of the 1950's 12-54 gauges, but today's lighter sets make the staggered pickups all unbalanced.

I think staggering nowadays is only a 'visual' thing, my most customer played Strat has flatpole pickups and with 10-48 strings it's great. Some of the local corquesniffers won't play it because it's not 'vintage enough'. I tell them I listen with my ears, and I don't need a compressor either since I'm a 'dynamics' player myself.

Yes, I do have a few PITAs around here, mostly people who either think they know more than they do because they 'read it in some website somewhere', or 'local elitist' people who weren't ever too successful in their own careers and can't stand anyone else in town who is.

/snip
Some players think that gear will give them the tone they are lacking, or even the talent!
A good player can get their tone from just about anything... or at least a good tone.

Look at Leslie West, he sounds the way he does no matter what he plays.
Or Mark Knophler , just a couple notes on any guitar and you know it's 'him' too. It ain't the gear, it's the talent. An instrument with good sounding pickups will give any player confidence no matter what level he/she is playing at, and make you want to play better. IMHO the better you sound, the better you play.

Ken

[Mark Hammer]

Well, then you're both right. There is a cogent reason for stagger, provided one is using the strings and string tension that stagger was designed to anticipate. However, there appears to be no cogent reason for stagger when the immediate environment ofthe pickup interferes with how that stagger works.

[Pep]

One thing worth mentioning about the strings back then is that they were all nickel, not the nickel coated steel that most folks use these days. Definitely has a big effect on tone and balance. Snake Oil Strings can be had in the vintage formula if you are chasing that tone.

[Zhangliqun]

Tele's do seem to work better as flatpoles.

For Strats, I'm not a big fan of the vintage stagger. My standard stagger is a slight radius with the low E rod bumped up just a bit on the bridge pu.

[NightWinder]

Thats funny shit..