I believe that this question has been addressed in both "The Stratocaster Chronicles" and "Fender: The Sound Heard 'Round the World". I own and have read both but do not remember what they say on the subject, so I will not speculate. Perhaps someone should look it up in the two books instead of continuing to guess.

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Bill

Bill,What I posted was what I have read in those books and several others....and if you read what all those old guys who worked there in the early days have to say,they don't all agree on what happened....so many of them have different stories on how the Strat in general came about and why the guitar was designed that way.
One really good example is necks and the way they were shaped....and that headstock shape....well,ever see a Bigsby headstock? Leo said that wasn't his influence,but others say different.....they do resemble each other like cousins.

Position dictates tone -- in addition to moving the entire pickup up or down, angling them has the impact of changing tone for some strings in one direction, whilst changing the tone for other strings in a different manner.

Then there's pole height as well...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_coi ... ter_design

+1

Excellent. I just think it is always worthwhile to identify the sources when someone responds to questions such as this.

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Bill

I read somewhere, but can't find the reference, that the angled pickup position has something to do with string vibrations and wave forms. After a string is plucked, waves occur across the length of the string. These waves are like sine waves with the wave length dependent on the frequency of the string. Nodes occur when the wave crosses the neutral axis. If the pickup is positioned under a node, there is little to no vibration to sense. Thus, no tone. Therefore the pickup is angled to avoid the waveform nodes for the frequency of the particular string.

For those familiar with Mosrite guitars, the neck pickup was angled.

My thoughts, not something I've read:

The sound comes from the vibration of the strings and vibration is a wave and waves have two things: Frequency and length. Variations in frequency produce different pitches and variations in length, in the case of electric guitars, produce different outputs.
The bigger the wave, the more the output.

I think that lighter strings, have bigger wave lengths close to their starting point (the bridge), they vibrate better there than the heavier strings which due to their stiffer material require a little more distance from the bridge to produce equal wave length and thus output.

So the closer to the bridge pole piece of the high E, receives almost (i guess) equal amount of volt-producing wave length with the further from the bridge pole piece of Low E.

Of course these differences become less important as you are going up the strings and that's why it wasn't necessary to put the other two pickups in similar angles.

...


But I could be totally wrong.

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Alexander
AMSTD Strat RW Candy Cola +Callaham + Texas Specials +Tortoise shell pickguard/Fender Blues Junior III SN FSR
Salonica-Greece


Macedonia IS GREECE the last 2500 years

The string gauge doesn't determine the overall frequency of the note -- you solve for that through tuning in conjunction with string thickness and length.

When you look at staggered pole height on the pickups, you'll see that the 4 lowest strings get progressively taller, and then the 2 highest strings have a very low height. Basically, it's not a continuous pattern.

The closer to the bridge you go, the more of an initial "attack" you'll have, followed by a quicker decay -- these are also characteristics of notes played on a short length string (think of the high notes on a piano).

When you move towards the neck, there's not as much of an attack quality to the note, and the note doesn't seem to decay as much.

At both points, the string is making the name number of vibrations per second, but the big difference is the speed at which the string is moving -- sort of like how the earth is moving faster at the equator than at the poles, but it takes the same length of time for the earth to make a rotation.

Hertz(Hz) is the measure of sound frequency(what we hear as pitch) or, vibrations per second. The higher the frequency, the faster the vibrations. The string vibrates the air causing waves(sound). OR The pickups pick up the magnetic field occelations caused by the strings and sends 'em to the amp, and then the speaker vibrates the air, just like the string did originally.

I know most of you know all this, and that was a very crude explanation, but it seems that some of the fundemental physics are getting lost in some of these theories.

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2010 American Deluxe Strat Sunset Metallic - Lindy Fralin Blues Specials in the neck and middle, Dimarzio AT-1 humbucker in the bridge.
PRS Custom 22 with solid rosewood neck
Mesa/Boogie Electra Dyne 1x12 combo
DRRI

imo the best answers to the question are the first two. So you can get the most treble while the bass strings retain their tonal qualities.

makes alot of sense, angle kept the low end while having a unique high end quality.
TWANG.....

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

oogway, kungfu panda 2008

From www.buildyourguitar.com:

Slanted pickups

Some luthiers don't place the pickup perpendicular to the strings, but at a slight angle. The magnets of the treble strings get closer to the bridge, and the magnets that "read" the bass strings become gradually more separated from the bridge. This is done to increase the tonal range response of the instrument, since the treble strings will sound more "twangy", more brittle, and the bass strings will sound more "bassy" (see figure):

Does it work? Yes, the response of the pickup should be audibly different.

If that was the case, then why not do it in all 3 pickups?

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Alexander
AMSTD Strat RW Candy Cola +Callaham + Texas Specials +Tortoise shell pickguard/Fender Blues Junior III SN FSR
Salonica-Greece


Macedonia IS GREECE the last 2500 years

Maybe....too much TWANG!
Leo's design didn't use a tone control on the bridge pickup,so he placed it in the correct position for the tone he thought musicians would appreciate the most.
You have to understand,that music was very different in those days and some of the first guitarists to try the Strat out were Country and Western and Western Swing musicians,playing in big bands with several types of instruments,that bridge pickup had to cut through the mix.

WARNING: "Infallible Web Dogma" forthcoming:

Everything who has posted to this point is grossly incorrect. I and a mere few are the only ones who know the real reason which I shall share with you all forthwith.

The reason is because most players hold the neck of their guitar higher than the body sits as they play. The Strat's bridge pickup was designed to be precisely at this same angle. This compensation causes the bridge pickup to point straight down towards the floor. The genius of this design lies in the fact that as most players play mostly over the bridge pickup and so, their sweat will drip directly onto the bridge pickup where it will consequently roll straight down, coating the entire pickup which in turn will produce the 'splashy' or 'surf' effect Strats are singularly famous for.

And yes, I know this for an indisputable fact where it is most definitely, absolutely true! See, there's this 14 year old kid working at a musical instrument chain store in my locale who is undeniably the best luthier on the East Coast. Now his 12 year old brother (who is so good that he is getting a recording contract at any moment) told his father's friend of a friend's cousin's son that his brother saw it in a drug induced vision while pondering the existence of the "Brown Note".

So there you have it, proof positive!!

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You dig?