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Post subject: Bridge Pickup placement
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 10:33 pm
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I have a quick question, what is the purpose of mounting the bridge pickup at an angle with respect to the bridge ?


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Post subject: Re: Bridge Pickup placement
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2016 12:02 am
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Short answer: sound. :wink:

Longer: the Tele/Strat pickup slant gives brighter highs and bassier lows than a right angle pickup would. Historically, St. Leo & the gang were apparently reaching for a lap steel like sound.

But as in all guitar sound related issues, there are variations. Reverse angle bridge pickups. MusicMasters, DuoSonics (...) with angled neck pickups. Etc. There is no one right answer, so take your pick(up).


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Post subject: Re: Bridge Pickup placement
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2016 12:21 pm
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Thanks J


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Post subject: Re: Bridge Pickup placement
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2016 3:34 pm
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jmattis wrote:
Short answer: sound. :wink:

Longer: the Tele/Strat pickup slant gives brighter highs and bassier lows than a right angle pickup would. Historically, St. Leo & the gang were apparently reaching for a lap steel like sound.


+1......however, this "discovery/development" was accidental.

According to legend (I believe I read this in Smith's "Fender - The Sound Heard Round The World"), there was a mistake made during the design of the Esquire in 1949 when the width dimension for the pickup bobbin was misinterpreted and ended up being too wide to fit perpendicularly between the rails of the bridge plate. This was found only after several hundred pickups had been wound in anticipation of mass production. Rather than trash these pickups as unusable, Leo found that by angling the orientation by some twenty degrees that it could be shoehorned into the bridge plate. Thus, the bridge plate was redesigned with an angled hole and the rest as they say is history. The angled bridge pickup feature was adopted for the Stratocaster after the sonic benefits became apparent with the Esquire and Telecaster (nee Broadcaster) guitars.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Bridge Pickup placement
Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 2:56 pm
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Retroverbial wrote:
jmattis wrote:
Short answer: sound. :wink:

+1......however, this "discovery/development" was accidental.

Arjay


Accidental discovery is the uncle of invention


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Post subject: Re: Bridge Pickup placement
Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 6:56 pm
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Eroot64 wrote:
Accidental discovery is the uncle of invention


+1

Just as with the discovery of penicillin which engendered the development of all modern antibiotics.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Bridge Pickup placement
Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 6:30 pm
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Retroverbial wrote:
jmattis wrote:
Short answer: sound. :wink:

Longer: the Tele/Strat pickup slant gives brighter highs and bassier lows than a right angle pickup would. Historically, St. Leo & the gang were apparently reaching for a lap steel like sound.


+1......however, this "discovery/development" was accidental.

According to legend (I believe I read this in Smith's "Fender - The Sound Heard Round The World"), there was a mistake made during the design of the Esquire in 1949 when the width dimension for the pickup bobbin was misinterpreted and ended up being too wide to fit perpendicularly between the rails of the bridge plate. This was found only after several hundred pickups had been wound in anticipation of mass production. Rather than trash these pickups as unusable, Leo found that by angling the orientation by some twenty degrees that it could be shoehorned into the bridge plate. Thus, the bridge plate was redesigned with an angled hole and the rest as they say is history. The angled bridge pickup feature was adopted for the Stratocaster after the sonic benefits became apparent with the Esquire and Telecaster (nee Broadcaster) guitars.

Arjay



Great info, Arjay! And good to see you, man

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Post subject: Re: Bridge Pickup placement
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2016 8:16 am
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I'm always here, de Melo.

('cept when I'm not)

:mrgreen:

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Bridge Pickup placement
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2016 5:32 pm
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:lol:

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Post subject: Re: Bridge Pickup placement
Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2016 10:19 am
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jmattis wrote:
Longer: the Tele/Strat pickup slant gives brighter highs and bassier lows than a right angle pickup would.


It's actually the other way around. The closer the pickup is to the bridge, the brighter the sound, but the lower the volume. This is why on a guitar with the exact same pickup and winding in the bridge and neck positions, the bridge pickup sounds brighter and the neck pickup sounds darker and louder, and why Gibson labels the bridge pickup a "Treble" pickup.
Jimi Hendrix having the pickup angled the other way gave brighter treble and boomier bass.

But as Arjay said, the difference in sound isn't the cause of the angling, but a side effect that has become historical.


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