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Post subject: Slanted humbuckers in an HS?
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 12:37 am
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So I was checking out this cool photo gallery from the LA Times of rockers who play Strats.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/mu ... z2tMSE8B00

And I noticed this photo of Robbie Robertson with an HS(?) Strat where the bridge humbucker is slanted.
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Never saw a slanted humbucker in the bridge position before; usually humbuckers are straight and only single coils are slanted.

Has anyone else seen this before?


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Post subject: Re: Slanted humbuckers in an HS?
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 6:03 am
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Post subject: Re: Slanted humbuckers in an HS?
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 7:25 pm
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It might be urban legend, but I've always heard that Robbie moved the middle pickup in his Strats in the 70s down by the bridge pickup because he was getting his thumbpick and/or fingerpicks caught on the pickup in its normal spot.


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Post subject: Re: Slanted humbuckers in an HS?
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 7:54 pm
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About a dozen years ago or so (maybe as much as 15 years ago?) Fender made a couple of Telecaster models with slanted humbuckers. They were recreations of the custom shop Teles they built for Jerry Donahue and John Jorgenson of The Hellecasters. I don't think they sold very well because they weren't in the catalog for very long.

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Post subject: Re: Slanted humbuckers in an HS?
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 8:16 pm
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Highline wrote:
So I was checking out this cool photo gallery from the LA Times of rockers who play Strats.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/mu ... z2tMSE8B00

And I noticed this photo of Robbie Robertson with an HS(?) Strat where the bridge humbucker is slanted.
Image

Never saw a slanted humbucker in the bridge position before; usually humbuckers are straight and only single coils are slanted.

Has anyone else seen this before?


This is interesting. Did he run them as a humbucker I wonder.

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Post subject: Re: Slanted humbuckers in an HS?
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 8:49 pm
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John C wrote:
It might be urban legend, but I've always heard that Robbie moved the middle pickup in his Strats in the 70s down by the bridge pickup because he was getting his thumbpick and/or fingerpicks caught on the pickup in its normal spot.

Thanks John. That's certainly a plausible theory!


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Post subject: Re: Slanted humbuckers in an HS?
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 8:58 pm
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My old friend Google came to the rescue and it looks like John C was right, in a 1987 article by Bill Flannigan from the September 1987 Musician, Robbie says:
Robbie Robertson wrote:
I've had this souped-up old Stratocaster quite a while. It has 'Number 254' on the back. You can tell it's old 'cause the neck's a little thick. Before I used it in Last Waltz I had it bronzed, like baby shoes. That gave it a very thick, sturdy sound. A Stratocaster has three pickups; I had the one in the middle moved to the back with the other and tied them together. They have a different sound when they're tied together, and I don't like having a pick-up in the middle, where you pick. I've got a Washburn whammy bar on that guitar. I have a 1959 Les Paul with flat-wound strings on it that I use if I want a thicker, fatter sound. Those flat-wound strings are nice for slide playing.

Check the whole interview here:
http://theband.hiof.no/articles/rr_musician_sep_87.html

Edit: Typo fix.


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Post subject: Re: Slanted humbuckers in an HS?
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 9:43 pm
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Robbie was a Washburn endorsee for a while in the 1990s; an ad from that era shows him playing one of their "Chicago" superstrat electrics, the KC100.


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