How much do we really NEED adjustable "polepieces" on humbuckers?

[Mark Hammer]

Flipping through the current issue of Guitar Player on the bus to work this morning, and it dawned on me that I didn't think I'd ever seen a PAF-style humbucker, whether in an ad or a gear shot of somebody noteable, where the screws had been adjusted from anything other than ruler flat, at least in any visible way. All these years of the familiar archetypal cover with 6 holes and little screws poking out of them, but does anybody really use them? Or are they just the way things are supposed to be; a kind of vestigial organ from the early days of pickups?

Certainly the very existence of dual rails suggests that string-to-string balance is not really all THAT hard to achieve, such that having a backup system (in the form of height adjustable screw polepieces) to "compensate" is not really something very many people would ever need to use. We adjust the overall height of the pickup with the screws on the pickup ring, and that's enough.

Now, if the composition of those screws , or the height of the exposed screwtops, relative to the flat slugs, is a part of the tone of humbuckers, that's fine with me.

But my question is whether very many players actually DO adjust individual height with them, or whether it is just one of those things that have been done for so long - 6 level slugs in this coil and 6 screws in that one - we think that's how it is supposed to be done and simply don't question it?

[Peter Naglitsch]

I use them more to tune the sound of the pickup. And that is just from tweaking the screw height, not changing to another alloy screw. Just adjusting the screw heads up/down can create a drastic change in sound. My main guitar ha a neck pickup I didn't really nailed the sound for (made this years ago) and I was about to rewind it. By luck I started to adjust the screws first and boom, the sound was just right. Thats the way I learned how much the screw heights can change the sound of a pickup.

[LtKojak]

Seth Lover's original PAF design called for a covered, two slug rows p'up.

Maybe I'm a freak, but I'd change the design to a covered double row of screws.

The best way to have full control to fine-tune both volume between strings and harmonics reading of each coil independently.

HTH,

.

[Enzo]

Two questions there: do they do much, and does anyone use them. Not necessarily the same thing.

Like distortion in an amp, you often don;t notice it until you go LOOKING for it. As a not very good player, I don;t much pay attention to whether the G string is a trifle louder than the others, or whatever. But then there are those guys who claim to hear the difference in battery brands in their fuzz pedals. I have adjusted them in the past. I found it to be more useful in my bass guitar.

If you like it with them all even, then why change it, but nice to know you can if you ever get into odd string weights for some reason.

[Sweetfinger]

As was stated, Seth Lover's original design called for two slug coils. Gibson added adjustable poles so the sales guys would have a feature to point at and "sell".

[David Schwab]

I never ever adjust them. I generally leave them flush with the top of the pickup, or protruding a little.

Back in the 70s I used to try adjusting them, and I did find that you can change the tone of the pickup that way, as Peter said, but I always ended up putting them back down, since I didn't like that tone. I guess it can "fix" a pickup you don't like the tone of, but I'd rather change the pickup.

Most of the guitar humbuckers I make use blades instead of poles.

[ken]

I sent a humbucker to France once with the pole screws turned all the way in because the customer actually asked for them that way... then got a complaint because my pickup sounded 'dead'. I told the customer to turn the screws out flush with the top surface of the cover where they should be, and then I was told that he didn't know that they were meant to be adjustable... and besides he just didn't like the look of the screw slots.

I think the screws can be useful if you have an instrument with an unbalanced frequency response, but once set the screws should be forgotten about.

ken

[Mark Hammer]

I guess the companion to this thread is to ask whether anybody makes or has made a humbucker with slugs in both coils, and how it sounded.

Also connected to the discussion is the height adjustment system. Traditional PAF-style pickups have a single height-adjustment screw on each side such that it permits the overall height to be varied, but not the "tilt". Other types have come with 3 screw-spring adjustables, such that the tilt of the pickup can be adjusted - bridge-side sticking up more or neck side, in addition to overall height. One would think that when tilt is adjustable, individual screws within the pickup become less useful.

[Peter Naglitsch]

I do a pickup I call "the Slugger" (giddit, the slugger, all slugs... never mind). It is not that different from a normal pickup. A tad higher output maybe. Different, not better nor worse.

[Mark Hammer]

I like it, but I suspect a name like "Slugger" may have more cachet in a country that has baseball.

[David Schwab]

I guess the companion to this thread is to ask whether anybody makes or has made a humbucker with slugs in both coils, and how it sounded.

Well you can look at pickups with matched coils, like a Dimarzio or even Filter'tron, and just ignore the fact that they are adjustable poles.

I've seen quite a few humbucker with double slugs. Here's a Tom Anderson humbucker:



I also have some generic humbuckers from Squier guitars that have plastic bobbins with two slug coils. They sound like a humbucker to me.