Alignment of Bridge Pickup

[Gregsaab]

I noticed that my Deluxe’s bridge pickup’s poles are not aligned with the strings. Is this normal? Is there a way to shift this without drilling new holes in the body?

With bridge pickup selected, it does seem that the volume decreases on each successively higher string.

Note: this has the gen-2 pickups

[mmmguitar]

The issue *should* only be cosmetic (not every guitar’s strings are going to pass over the center of every pole piece - You can back the pole piece screws out to get them closer to the strings and see if it sounds better). If those are Dimarzios you installed, there could be production tolerances in what their F spacing is now (I think it’s supposed to be 53mm, with Dimarzio's current F spacing is 51.05mm), compared to what they were producing for Parker.

Unfortunately, you’re not going to be able to relocate the pickup’s mounting without removing the inserts, filling, redrilling, and reinserting components that were installed as permanent fixtures. Alternatively, you can try mounting the pickup with adhesive and shorter “mounting” screws that don’t thread in to anything. However, it appears to be a case of the pole piece spacing of the pickup itself being narrower than the string spacing.

[Gregsaab]

That is interesting that the centering is only a cosmetic concern. To me, it would seem that the relative position/distance of the string to pole’s center would affect volume.

[mmmguitar]

That is interesting that the centering is only a cosmetic concern. To me, it would seem that the relative position/distance of the string to pole’s center would affect volume.

Pickup bobbins are standardized to a few common string/polepiece spacings (e.g. 49.2mm, 51.5mm, 53mm, etc.), but aren’t one-size-fits-all because (with typical pickup designs, anyway) the pickup’s magnetic field isn’t really constrained to the pole pieces themselves (active and hexaphonic designs with smaller/weaker magnetic fields are exceptions intended to constrain and/or focus these fields into smaller areas).

If you’re experiencing signal dropout from bending strings away from pole pieces, try adjusting the pole piece heights to be nearer to the strings. “Blade” style pickups exist to address this concern, and some may remember Carvin making 22 polepiece pickups until 2016 or so for the same reason.

Guitar brands in the modern era typically make a point to use pickups with polepiece spacings which cosmetically align with the strings as they pass over the neck, middle, or bridge pup routs - but this alignment is not crucial to the interaction of the ferromagnetic string with the broader magnetic field it’s disrupting. It’s actually quite common to see guitars with aftermarket pickups of various spacings which don’t neatly align with the guitar’s given string spacing. Furthermore, industry leaders such as Fender and Gibson historically first produced guitars featuring identically spec’d pickups in all positions; which resulted in string/polepiece spacing often being “off” with at least one pickup’s location.

For a more modern example, Michael Frank Braun (master builder/engineer/inventor for Fender and other brands) produced a line of “MF”-branded humbuckers in only one spacing (something like a 50mm Gibson-derivative). Strandberg signed an OEM deal with him to use these pickups, despite the string spacing over the bridge humbucker in their multiscale guitars being greater than 52mm. This resulted in every guitar leaving the factory looking like your Fly. But MFB insists he prefers how the smaller bobbins “sound” so; in a promo video, he made a point of informing viewers that the spacing discrepancy was something he wished to be regarded as purely a cosmetic concern, arising from function-over-form.

The unique string spacing of the Fly design Ken settled on required two pickups of similar width be used in the neck and bridge position. As far as I know, preexisting F-spaced Dimarzio bobbins were chosen for the OEM contract simply for the sake of keeping production costs down, on the basis of being “close enough” to the string spacing over the Fly’s neck and bridge pickup routs.

I understand that a fair amount of people are bothered by such alignment discrepancies. I fall in the camp of being more concerned with whether the distance’s effect on performance is indeed negligible or not. I don’t claim to know for certain, but I can say I’ve played a lot of guitars with mismatched string/polepiece spacings, and not noticed any issues attributable to that single factor.

Here’s a page where someone strived to measure and illustrate the differences in the magnetic fields of a few magnet and pickup types:

http://www.skguitar.com/SKGS/sk/Images/ ... netics.htm

At the end of the day, only you can decide if the spacing discrepancy in your setup is a problem. Please let us know if adjusting the hex screw pole pieces helps; as others will likely encounter this.

[vjmanzo]

Very helpful info, Marc thanks!

[Gregsaab]

This was a very informative response, thank you Marc!