Flat Poles vs Staggered Poles

[overdrive]

Is it essentially true that on a fretboard radius of 9.5"+ staggered poles are relatively unnecessary?

I've heard that they were originally designed for a 7.25" radius & are little more than 'vintage appearance' on the slightly flatter fretboards.

Tone being subjective at best, some folks seem to think the uneveness of the stagger adds texture to the overall sound while others (such as myself) have noticed a more balanced string tone & added definition with flat poles on a modern-day Stratocaster.

[pdf64]

The D, and to a lesser extent the A, string seems weak to me without their poles being raised.
But the vintage strat stagger is a bad thing with 'modern' plain G strings. While I wouldn't recommend it on expensive real vintage pickups, I've been able to correct that by carefully pushing that pole piece down to the same level as the B string. Potentially risky because the winding might break.

[David Schwab]

Staggered poles are so much about the fingerboard radius, as balancing the level between strings that we no longer use. Hardly anyone uses heavy strings with wound G's anymore.

I really dislike vintage staggered poles. There might be a certain texture going on, but they sound very unbalanced from string to string, to me. And that outweighs any interesting tone they might have.

[big_teee]

I really dislike vintage staggered poles. There might be a certain texture going on, but they sound very unbalanced from string to string, to me. And that outweighs any interesting tone they might have.

So David do you stictly wind them flat or do you put a little bit of stagger in there? I think a strat sounds good with a bit more power on the middle strings. I usually make them .688s instead of .710s in the middle. I tend to want to beat them in and out, even I know this is a no-no and may break the winding, but no problems yet. That's why we coat the polls, isn't it?
Terry

[David Schwab]

So David do you stictly wind them flat or do you put a little bit of stagger in there? I think a strat sounds good with a bit more power on the middle strings. I usually make them .688s instead of .710s in the middle.

I don't make Strat pickups, or many pickups with poles for that matter, but an arch to follow the neck is fine.

I tend to want to beat them in and out, even I know this is a no-no and may break the winding, but no problems yet. That's why we coat the polls, isn't it?
Terry

I tape them. Thats still asking for trouble.

[Rick Turner]

You can't be sure that some inner wraps of wire aren't laying right on the magnets having slipped past tape, and so pushing magnets in and out can be disastrous. Ditto with lacquered poles. Of course I've done it as have many others, and sure sometimes we get away with it, but...

[David Schwab]

That's where those plastic Strat bobbins come in handy.

I always liked the way Duncan had the poles flush with the top, and staggered on the bottom, of the early stacked pickups with the closed covers.

I thought that was clever. You can do a combination and have an arch on the top and the stagger on the bottom from the different length magnets.

[Spence]

You can tilt Strat pickups to compensate for any string balance issues. Take Hendrix for example; right handed guitar and pickups with the strings the wrong way for them. Still managed to sound pretty decent.

[David Schwab]

You can tilt Strat pickups to compensate for any string balance issues.

You have to if you don't want the bass strings to be too loud.

Take Hendrix for example; right handed guitar and pickups with the strings the wrong way for them. Still managed to sound pretty decent.

It probably sounded better since the poles under the bass strings are more even. So his treble strings would have come out more even. He also kept the pickups pretty far from the strings which tends to even things out.

[RedHouse]

The D, and to a lesser extent the A, string seems weak to me without their poles being raised.
But the vintage strat stagger is a bad thing with 'modern' plain G strings. While I wouldn't recommend it on expensive real vintage pickups, I've been able to correct that by carefully pushing that pole piece down to the same level as the B string. Potentially risky because the winding might break.

These days it's not "stagger" that we need, it's "matching radius".

IMHO, pickups sound best when the vertical alignment of the poles either matches, or comes close to matching the radius of the fretboard. All ways work, staggered, flat, or radiused, so it's up to personal taste.

As David has said, few-to-none use a wound G on electric guitars anymore so the reason for stagger is gone, but there is still a good case for matching radius, then as was also said before, tilting the pickup slightly so the low-E id further from the pole than the high-E fine tunes it.

YMMV

[Rick Turner]

Try bending the entire coil, for that matter. I did that on some very early pre-Alembic pickup coils that were wound without bobbins. At the time it wasn't worth the effort, but it might be time to look at it again. You could vacuum wax pot the pickup and put it in a press with curved shoes while the wax cools. Hmmm, I'll have to try that...

[fieldwrangler]

As David has said, few-to-none use a wound G on electric guitars anymore
YMMV

I use wound G's on 2 of my main axes, but not on Strats. However, a surprising number of my students do have wound G's on Strats...

Bob Palmieri

[David Schwab]

I use wound G's on 2 of my main axes, but not on Strats. However, a surprising number of my students do have wound G's on Strats...

What are they using, 14s? You always hear people citing SRV using heavy strings, but they forget that he tuned the guitar down a step!

I dislike the tone of anything heavier than 10s unless it's an archtop.

[fieldwrangler]

What are they using, 14s? You always hear people citing SRV using heavy strings, but they forget that he tuned the guitar down a step!

I dislike the tone of anything heavier than 10s unless it's an archtop.

They're using 12's, mostly.

I do hafta remind people about the low tuning in SRV's case.

There can be a great beauty in the sound of light strings; much of it is in the way the overtones line up (when you don't hit them too hard.)

However, there's also a lotta stuff that I can't get out of them at all. Within the next week I'll upload a track or two that I've recorded recently and see if you still think you don't like the tone of 11's & 12's on solidbodies, especially resilient ones.

By the way, what's the recommended way to make fairly hi-fi sound clips available to the forum?

Bob Palmieri

[David Schwab]

They're using 12's, mostly.

I do hafta remind people about the low tuning in SRV's case.

There can be a great beauty in the sound of light strings; much of it is in the way the overtones line up (when you don't hit them too hard.)

One of the things I like about lighter strings is the snap and crunch you get when you hit them hard. That's one of my favorite sounds! Heavy string just go "sproing."

Oddly enough I have this guitar I made with a 50's Den Electro neck and a lucite body that looks like a cross between a long horn and one of Rick Turner's Alembics (not to confuse them with the funny looking Alembics). Anything heavier than 9's on that guitar hurts your ears! it just gets these unpleasant overtones. It's also a very bassy sounding guitar, so the thin strings tame the low end. One thing I like to say as someone who plays both bass and guitar is too many guitar players use too much low end! It leaves no room for the bass unless you are using a very bright bass tone. Thinner guitar tones sound better in band situations.

However, there's also a lotta stuff that I can't get out of them at all. Within the next week I'll upload a track or two that I've recorded recently and see if you still think you don't like the tone of 11's & 12's on solidbodies, especially resilient ones.

I look forward to that.

By the way, what's the recommended way to make fairly hi-fi sound clips available to the forum?

That's a good question. I host my own files on my web site, but I had an issue once where some Japanese website linked to one of my songs which got so much traffic my web host shut my site down! I wish I had $0.99 for every time they downloaded my song, dammit!

There are some web sites that will do free hosting of audio files. I've run across them but don't remember the names.