strat picups, set of 3, all different resistance.???

[Suprosuper man]

does anyone know why all the pickups in one set of standard strat pickups all have different resistances..

I mean they are selling them with a middle pickup that has less resistance than the bridge pickup, and the neck pickup has less resistance than the middle pickup... ive seen some extreme cases where the difference between the neck and bridge pickup is getting close to almost double the resistance..

I have a strat copy , i bought it years ago because i was amazed by its tone, especially the pickup combination switch positions. It really stood out when i tried it in the store...after owning it for awhile i took resistance measurements and found that all three of its pickups had identical resistances...

My understanding of a strats tone is that by placing the a pickup at different locations along a string you get different tonal qualities of that small section of the string...And you then balance out the volume levels of the three pickups by moving the pickups closer or further away from the string...usually the large movement of the string section near the neck creates louder volumes so that pickup is set further back away from the string...while the section of string near the bridge dont move as great a distance as the neck area so its tends to produce less volume in a pickup, so pickups have to be brought closer to the string to increase their volume when their placed in the area of the string near the bridge..

it seems to me that pickup makers are instead of moving the pickup closer or further from the string to level out volume levels, are instead trying to even out the volume levels between the pickups by increasing or decreasing the windiings in the pickup,,,,,,the problem i have with that is that by adding more windings to the coil it now changes the the pickups frequency response if your adding more turns to the coil. So the tone now becomes less dependant purely on string location and starts to become more affected by the pickup's tone itself...

pickup switch settings that blend the deep tones near the neck with the progressively brighter tones as you get near the bridge like the neck and middle, or the middle and bridge are what give you that unique pickup combination tone..Two dissimilar tones being combined to give you a new tone...but if you put a under wound bright sounding pickup near the neck it will make the low neck string tones sound more bright...and subsequently if you put a pickup with more windings near the bridge part of the string it will restrict some of the brighter tones of the string near the bridge from getting threw and accent the deeper ones.....the result is the two tones are now less dissimilar in tone than they would have been if both pickups were identical.... so having these two pickups on together is gonna produce a less drastic a combination of extreme tones than it would be if both pickups were identically wound with the same number of turns...

also , there is some phase interaction between middle and neck pickup combinations, and also between the bridge and middle pickup combinations..and as we all know a humbucker that is built with two inner coils that dont perfectly match wont buck (cancel) the hum because it relies on phase cancellation to do so,,,,therefore i would think that if you also want the best phase interaction between the strat pickup combinations you might also want all 3 coils/pickups to be identical as well..???

I hope you all under stand the point im trying to put across.

so does anyone understand the logic or reasoning behind all these pickup makers using pickup with different numbers of windings for each pickup in the same set of pickups for a guitar...can someone please explain the rational behind this practise....like im not saying they dont sound nice or its a bad thing, im just saying that i think you would get better results in the combination switch position if you kept the pickups all equal....ok maybe "better" is a bad choice of words, "improved phase interaction" is maybe a better way of saying it..???

thank you.

[PoorMan]

does anyone know why all the pickups in one set of standard strat pickups all have different resistances..

I mean they are selling them with a middle pickup that has less resistance than the bridge pickup, and the neck pickup has less resistance than the middle pickup... ive seen some extreme cases where the difference between the neck and bridge pickup is getting close to almost double the resistance..

I have a strat copy , i bought it years ago because i was amazed by its tone, especially the pickup combination switch positions. It really stood out when i tried it in the store...after owning it for awhile i took resistance measurements and found that all three of its pickups had identical resistances...

My understanding of a strats tone is that by placing the a pickup at different locations along a string you get different tonal qualities of that small section of the string...And you then balance out the volume levels of the three pickups by moving the pickups closer or further away from the string...usually the large movement of the string section near the neck creates louder volumes so that pickup is set further back away from the string...while the section of string near the bridge dont move as great a distance as the neck area so its tends to produce less volume in a pickup, so pickups have to be brought closer to the string to increase their volume when their placed in the area of the string near the bridge..

it seems to me that pickup makers are instead of moving the pickup closer or further from the string to level out volume levels, are instead trying to even out the volume levels between the pickups by increasing or decreasing the windiings in the pickup,,,,,,the problem i have with that is that by adding more windings to the coil it now changes the the pickups frequency response if your adding more turns to the coil. So the tone now becomes less dependant purely on string location and starts to become more affected by the pickup's tone itself...

pickup switch settings that blend the deep tones near the neck with the progressively brighter tones as you get near the bridge like the neck and middle, or the middle and bridge are what give you that unique pickup combination tone..Two dissimilar tones being combined to give you a new tone...but if you put a under wound bright sounding pickup near the neck it will make the low neck string tones sound more bright...and subsequently if you put a pickup with more windings near the bridge part of the string it will restrict some of the brighter tones of the string near the bridge from getting threw and accent the deeper ones.....the result is the two tones are now less dissimilar in tone than they would have been if both pickups were identical.... so having these two pickups on together is gonna produce a less drastic a combination of extreme tones than it would be if both pickups were identically wound with the same number of turns...

also , there is some phase interaction between middle and neck pickup combinations, and also between the bridge and middle pickup combinations..and as we all know a humbucker that is built with two inner coils that dont perfectly match wont buck (cancel) the hum because it relies on phase cancellation to do so,,,,therefore i would think that if you also want the best phase interaction between the strat pickup combinations you might also want all 3 coils/pickups to be identical as well..???

I hope you all under stand the point im trying to put across.

so does anyone understand the logic or reasoning behind all these pickup makers using pickup with different numbers of windings for each pickup in the same set of pickups for a guitar...can someone please explain the rational behind this practise....like im not saying they dont sound nice or its a bad thing, im just saying that i think you would get better results in the combination switch position if you kept the pickups all equal....ok maybe "better" is a bad choice of words, "improved phase interaction" is maybe a better way of saying it..???

thank you.

The short answer is: (like you said) to balance output.

Because of the different positions the pickups lie under the strings they produce different volumes. The neck position is louder than the middle which is louder than the bridge. If they were all wound with the same number of winds, the bridge would be queiter than the neck pickup.

Another benefit of a colder neck pickup is it will retain more highs and be less prone to sounding muddy (due to the decreased resistance)

[Suprosuper man]

hi poorman

well if you got a strat style pickup at around 5 k ohms in the neck position its not really that muddy a sounding a pickup,,,unless you compare it to the bridge pickup of 5 k ohms which is reading the the treble part of that same string..
but its not muddy-ness really its the natural deeper tone of that section of the string near the neck that your hearing...not like a tone control knob turned down which would be muddy for sure...

if both pickups the neck and the bridge are identical in every way , then to even out volumes all you do is back off the neck pickup, and you still get the deep rich tones at the neck. Which you kinda want in the first place so you can mix them with the contrasting treble sounds of the bridge or middle....just seems that manipulating the pickups by adding windings to them till the two extreme tones start sounding more alike/similar is in away defeating the purpose of placing pickups at different unique tonal locations along the length of the string...

if pickup makers keep tweaking the pickups to a point that all three positions along the string sound the same then whats the sense of having combination switch positions, all it will do is blend 3 identical tones which gives you nothing new...(to an extent, im over emphasizing the blending interaction here, to explain my point)...

i guess i just find it odd that pickup makers dont offer sets of 3 pickups where all three in the set are identical...

again im not saying that sets with pickups having all different resistances dont sound good , they do to , but sets with 3 identical pickups sound good too in the combination switch positions......nice and bouncy tone...

..hmmm... if you had three of the best singers in the world singing, a baritone , a tenor , and a soprano and their voices sounded great together,,,how would you record them? ....with three identical mics to capture their voices as you heard them , or with three different mics , a mic to make the baritone sound like the tenor , and a mic to make the suprano sound like a tenor too,,,you would end up losing the natural unique blend or their 3 distinct voices if you did that ,,,, sure wouldnt sound like what you heard originally...not saying it will sound bad , just might sound different than the natural way their voices sounded when you first heard them singing together...

pickups are like mics, and each point along a string is like a singer with his own unique natural voice ....thats sorta how i think about it i guess..

sorry i think im just repeating my self, taking in circles...but i sometimes wonder if im explaining well enough or if everyone is missing the thought/idea im trying to put forth...

sure hope my 3 singers analogy didnt totally confuse everyone.....lol

[David Schwab]

if pickup makers keep tweaking the pickups to a point that all three positions along the string sound the same then whats the sense of having combination switch positions

Because they don't sound the same. Take two identical pickups and put them in different locations under the strings, and they sound different.

The problem is a nice clean pickup at the neck, sounds thin and weak at the bridge. If you wind them hot, it's muddy at the neck. This is why people started sticking humbuckers on Strats, to get more drive for leads. That bridge pickup was often shrill and not powerful enough.

So you wind them differently not to make them sound the same, because they never will. You wind them to bring out the best tone in that location.

You can get a nice clean neck pickup, and a punchy bridge pickup with more lows and mids, since it needs that. I've never quite gotten the point of the middle pickup on a Strat, especially before 5-way switches came along, but I guess some people used it too. My Strat style guitar doesn't have a middle pickup... just a hole in the pickguard!

I find it's especially useful with bass pickups to wind the neck and bridge for a different tone.

[spud1950]

i guess i just find it odd that pickup makers dont offer sets of 3 pickups where all three in the set are identical...

Actually,there are those who do.

[Suprosuper man]

hi david

you kinda hit the nail on the head,,,"soloing" and "style of music", if your a heavy modern metal kinda player, you would want the typical solo position pickup the bridge lead position , to be coming through first and foremost ...and thats where i think this modern trend to put hotter and hotter pickups even humbuckers in the bridge position has evolved from....for the very reasons you mentioned above...I think modern players are used to and expect a style of tone from the bridge for their type (genre, style) of playing , and yes they would have little use for the middle position.

But if your style is clean playing, and your using a strat, then you really want that middle pickup to be there, without it you dont get the classic strat "neck+middle" tone or the classic strat "middle + bridge" tone combinations, that with a touch of compresion and reverb made so mamy classic rock and roll tones...

when you got a humbucker in the bridge and a single coil in the mid you dont get the same quality of bouncy twang when you play clean that you would if you had two identical single coil pickups, in the bridge and mid position.....

i think people who tend to play more clean style of music and use the "neck + mid" and the "mid + bridge" positions alot would be more appreciative and take more notice of the tone of these pickup combinations on a strat...where as modern players used to humbuckers and some form of distortion might not find much use for the combination pickup settings mentioned, EVH being the extreme typical example of this..

so basically i think modern playing style has caused pickups sets to evolve to suit the soloing style of the music, although it doesnt best accentuate combination setting it does give the player the tone they want for single pickup soloing.....(thats just a theory im having, not necessarily something i can prove)
cheers david



Hi Spud 1950
do you know the names of the companies that make such sets.
cheers Spud


here is a link to a video on clean tone with a strat, very interesting , and at the end the fellow shows two very nice sounding strats:

In Search of the "Holy Grail" of old Strat tone Part 2" ...its a very good video showing all the classic strat tone and pickup positions on two very nice strats.

cheers all.

[David Schwab]

I play clean a lot, but I'm just tired of that notchy tone with the middle pickup added. It's good for funk though. I have a middle pickup on my Tele-ish guitar. As far as it being a classic tone... yes, some players used to stick their 3-way switches in-between pickups, but they didn't start putting 5-way switches on Strats until the early 80's.

There are real easy ways to get a hotter bridge pickup, even a humbucker, to blend in when you have two pickups on. One way is to run the pickup though a cap when it's in that switch position to roll off some low end.

The other point is that you can wind the bridge hotter just to match the level of the neck and middle, and it will still give you that tone. I'm not talking about over winding it like an old DiMarzio HS-1, just balanced with the other two.

Fender never intended people to use more than one pickup at a time on a Strat. They used three identical pickups because that's the cost effective thing to do. Pickups makers are doing "calibrated" sets now because it works better. Time marches on.