Do Raised Pole Pieces Really Matter?

[Matt R.]

Hi guys, i posted this over at talkbass, and of course I wanted to see what you all think too:

I’m plotting a Warmoth Single Coil Precision build. It will have a 10” radius. I know they used to raise the pole pieces on the A (and D I think) string back in the day because those Basses had balance issues.
I’m trying to decide if I should get a pickup (gonna go with Lindy Fralin) with pole pieces at equal heights since this bass will have a relatively flat radius.
Can anyone enlighten me on what I should do about the pole piece height?
Thanks!

[pjmuck]

I have a few basses that feature raised pole piece capability. The G&L L2000, for one. I've never touched the individual pole pieces ever.

On a bass, one would typically adjust a PUP for even output across the 4 strings. Unless there's something funky going on with the output of a particular string, I really don't see a significant benefit. MAYBE you're using lighter strings and the G ain't cutting it or sounds anemic. (I always found this to be an issue with Stingrays). Then maybe it would be nice to be able to jack up the volume level of that one particular string. But I've never had a problem simply doing that by raising that side of a standard PUP slightly.

Now on a guitar, without question, having pole pieces of varying heights can be beneficial and drastically affect the sound of your guitar, particularly with chordal work, where you can voice your chords and/or emphasize specific notes/strings in your chords in conjunction with how your pole pieces ares arranged. Hendrix's Strat, for example, had reverse PUPs with staggered poles, and thus gave that guitar it's particular unique sound. (I own a Fender '68 RI MIJ Hendrix strat with this feature, and it sounds different than other strats, i.e. bluesier in the neck position and a chimier quack tone in the out of phase positions).

[Matt R.]

Thanks for your post, Peter. That, along with a good convo with Lindy Fralin this morning really helped me to understand this issue better

[crescenze]

Matt
I've wondered about this too. If you have time, I would be interested in what insights you gained from you discussion with Lindy and what you decided to do.

[Matt R.]

What I learned was that the pole pieces were staggered on the vintage instruments mostly because of the materials that the strings used to be made of. On my build it won't matter really, being modern and all (it'll also have a flatter 10" radius). But Lindy said they would still do a subtle stagger since they don't charge for small changes on pickups made to order.

[crescenze]

What I learned was that the pole pieces were staggered on the vintage instruments mostly because of the materials that the strings used to be made of. On my build it won't matter really, being modern and all (it'll also have a flatter 10" radius). But Lindy said they would still do a subtle stagger since they don't charge for small changes on pickups made to order.

Interesting,thanks Matt. Look forward to pics when your new build is done!

[Matt R.]

It’ll be a while but I’ll definitely show it off.