STRAT BRIDGE ANGLE-WHY NOT STRAIGHT?

[SJ318]

Hi, hope I'm in the right forum. I took my J.Beck model and moved the electronics over to another pickgaurd and modded it so the JBj I had in the bridge ( i dislike the pu's it came with) I cut the pickgaurd so the high E side was the same but moved the low E side toward the bridge so now all 3 pu's are straight. I think my bridge pickup screams much more with the pu oriented parallel to the others.
I have never seen any one else do this. It sound's f****ng great. I also have never seen this idea discussed before, but maybe I missed a thread.
Somebody please jump in and tell me why no one else does. I find no disadvantage to this, other than modding a pickgaurd.
Thanks,
Steve B.

[Edgecrusher]

Re: STRAT BRIDGE ANGLE-WHY NOT STRAIGHT?

Need to think of it in terms of when the guitar was designed. From my understanding but I could be wrong im not completely up on Fender history the bridge pickup was angled foreward to increase the base response. Leo felt that it was too thin and tinny with the pickups of the time. Now fast fore ward to now we have pickups that much much more bass response than they did in the 50's so it isnt as necessary. The reason more people dont do it is simply tradition. Look at how many designs are from the 50's and earlier that are still being played. Guitarists can be slow to respond to change. If you dig it being straight then have at it.

[SJ318]

Re: STRAT BRIDGE ANGLE-WHY NOT STRAIGHT?

Thanks Edgecrusher,
That is what I thought. Yo, everyone, really, give it a try. that JBjr. is so strong that anything I played; lead, rhythm, chunky blues, even low vol. single passages sounded muddy, but now it all sounds so tight, like no other strat sound I have ever gotten, especially with nice single coil or SDuncan vintage styl pu together in the middle (position 4 I think).
I am going to look and see if anyone make a precut pickgaurd that way.
In my case, it doesn't show much at all as I used a red/brown p,gaurd.
I'll never use a fender pickgaurd the regular way again, especially now that with a lot of extra home mods, make this strat stay in tune ala floyd land (we knew each other briefly, I got to touch EVH's guitar before EVH got it back from floyd, he was just tooling up, so I saw 1/2 of the way thru).
Well, much love, sorry to ramble so much,
Steve B.
ps-if you want to read what I did to improve an already pretty good guitar, check on TheGearPage under extreme strat home mods. My name over there is SB53. It is very long, much like this and almost no one read it.
One guy gave me s**t for it.
But I did a good job and I am proud of it.

[SabbathFan0220]

Re: STRAT BRIDGE ANGLE-WHY NOT STRAIGHT?

Paul Gilbert took that idea and ran with it...

[tc]

Re: STRAT BRIDGE ANGLE-WHY NOT STRAIGHT?

Yes, I agree with the notion that in order to understand the reasons why, we need to put things in context. From what I understand it wasn't just about more bass on the low strings, but players also wanted brighter tones from the high strings. That might seem to also be the reason why as Leo went deeper and deeper into evolving his amps they also had bigger bass and brighter highs, with a reduction in the mids.

I'm glad it worked for you man, but maybe if we were talking about a vintage Strat single it'd be better to keep the bass side where it is and move the high e side closer to the neck.

[SJ318]

Re: STRAT BRIDGE ANGLE-WHY NOT STRAIGHT?

Very good point, tc. Thanks for the pic. sabbathFan0220.
Steve B.