How a blade affect sound

[Bob911]

Hello everyone,
I've got a question and I wanted to know how much a blade (like on the SH13 or the custom shop El diablo) change the pickup's sounds.
How would sound a crunch lab with 12 poles instead of 6 + a blade or the SH13 with only poles instead of a double blade?

[ItsaBass]

Re: How a blade affect sound

To me, they sound no different than a pickup with separate pole pieces...and I can't for the life of me hear the supposed volume retention when bending...but they sure look cool.

[Guitaraxz]

Re: How a blade affect sound

The blades or poles distribute the magnets power upwards to the strings. IMO the thicker the pole, screw (alen, normal, etc), the thicker the sound, the thinner the more atack. An SH13 is a very bright pup so they stuck a blade to give it more meat to the tone, otherwise it would probably sound too bright, but I haven't asked MJ to build me one with alen screws so I might be wrong.
I'm sure some more experienced dudes in the forum will give you their opinion, or better yet let you know how some srcew switching has changed their tone.

[Bob911]

Re: How a blade affect sound

To me, they sound no different than a pickup with separate pole pieces...and I can't for the life of me hear the supposed volume retention when bending...but they sure look cool.

Yeah, I never heard of this volume retention when bending when I was playing... but it's hard to believe that seymour duncan puts blades in hot rails and the dimebucker just because they look cool with blades... if you see what I mean.

[ItsaBass]

Re: How a blade affect sound

Yeah, I never heard of this volume retention when bending when I was playing... but it's hard to believe that seymour duncan puts blades in hot rails and the dimebucker just because they look cool with blades... if you see what I mean.

I'm not saying or implying that they are made for looks alone, or that they are pointless. It's just another means to an end; no reason to make every pickup with separate poles just because it happens to have been the norm. Even if I personally hear no sonic difference, it's still a pickup design that works...so why the heck not make it?

[Bob911]

Re: How a blade affect sound

oh, I see what's you're talking about, well sorry, I did a wrong interpretation of your previous message

[Shadow1psc]

Re: How a blade affect sound

The blades or poles distribute the magnets power upwards to the strings. IMO the thicker the pole, screw (alen, normal, etc), the thicker the sound, the thinner the more atack. An SH13 is a very bright pup so they stuck a blade to give it more meat to the tone, otherwise it would probably sound too bright, but I haven't asked MJ to build me one with alen screws so I might be wrong.
I'm sure some more experienced dudes in the forum will give you their opinion, or better yet let you know how some srcew switching has changed their tone.

To elaborate on this, it is tried and true that if you position your pickup with blade towards bridge (on a bridge humbucker) you start to loose out on low end and you start nearing ice-pick attack territory. For a Crunchlab and the Fuglybucker this is true. Turn them around, and they sound completely different, more balanced. I don't think it's just about having a blade, but also its orientation AND your technique to boot that's going to affect your attack.

To the debate about if blade vs. pole pieces in the same magnet/wind configuration, based on the above I believe it definitely would affect the sound. In what way might vary.

[Bob911]

Re: How a blade affect sound

I saw that the blades can also be the magnet (and sometime the magnet can be under the blade, the blades are like the poles of a "standard" pickup) any difference?

[speed2dirt]

Re: How a blade affect sound

I think there is more technical reasons than simply looks or bending capabilities:

1. The rails are continuous and probably distribute the magnetic field more evenly. Perhaps a stronger magnetic field since more metal is magnetically charged.
2. Most rail humbuckers by SD have oversized coils, hence the reason for a custom pickup ring. The Dimebucker is wider and narrower than a standard humbucker. How it affects tone, I have no idea but it all plays into it.
3. The Dimebucker uses injection molding for a casing instead of a nickel baseplate. The reduced use of metal creates a higher resonance peak.

All that to say, I think it all factors into the tone. I don't think you can say blades sound like X and polepieces sound like Y. It comes down to the design of the pickup and all the other factors they took into account to get the desired tone.

[formula73]

Re: How a blade affect sound

Before getting in to the hows and whys of the Dimebucker and why SD designed it that way, remember it was completely reverse-engineered from a prototype Bill Lawrence (not USA) called the L-500XXL, so the hows and whys should be directed towards Mr. Lawrence. Credit where credit is due, guys.

[Edgecrusher]

Re: How a blade affect sound

I saw that the blades can also be the magnet (and sometime the magnet can be under the blade, the blades are like the poles of a "standard" pickup) any difference?

FWIW SD tried multiple times to make a humbucker that fit Dimebags needs using standard baseplate and bobbins with screws and slugs. He accepted none of them. It wasnt until SD decided that it was financially worth while to invest in the machinery to make the baseplates and surrounds that the dimebucker uses that Dimebag was finally giving the thumbs up to pickups that SD wanted him to endorse. I'm sure if anyone in the world could make slugs and screws sound like blades it would be MJ and the SD custom shop. But it just wasnt feasible. There has to be a difference thats a ton of time and money spent if there was no difference.

[speed2dirt]

Re: How a blade affect sound

Before getting in to the hows and whys of the Dimebucker and why SD designed it that way, remember it was completely reverse-engineered from a prototype Bill Lawrence (not USA) called the L-500XXL, so the hows and whys should be directed towards Mr. Lawrence. Credit where credit is due, guys.

I completely give Bill credit for the fantastic pickups he makes. Honestly, I love Bill Lawrence pickups. That said, my post was not about SD copying Bill or anything like that. It was using the Dimebucker, since it is a SD pickup, as an example of differences between polepieces and blades. I did state it matters more how it was designed that will affect tone than simply blades vs polepieces, whether it was Bill, Seymour, or Larry that designed it.

For the record, SD took apart several of Dimebag's favorite Lawrence pickups (Stew Mac & B&B) to gain knowledge. Evan posted a handwritten note from Dime stating which pickups he was sending in. They did however have multiple revisions with tweaks to get it to where Dime wanted it, so it isn't a direct copy.

[doctorfixit]

Re: How a blade affect sound

Here's an experiment I conducted using a Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro II in the bridge position.
To simulate a blade I used a metal rod across the top of the pole pieces - actually a nail filed flat on one side to stay in position on the pole pieces. I plucked the G string and recorded it three ways. No blade , blade on the neck-side coil, blade on the bridge side coil.

As you can see from the graphs, a blade in either position lowers the lows slightly, boosts the mids, and at 1000hz there is a steeper drop off, with a "plateau" following. I would expect these effects to be more pronounced with a real blade.

,

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: How a blade affect sound

The way the dimebucker, emg, and most other rails pickups work, they can get much closer to the string because they pull the strings much less. This lets the string resonate fully adding sustain and harmonics.

[jumble jumble]

Re: How a blade affect sound

I just got a CS pickup that MJ made me. It's in the Dimebucker form factor but I wanted it to be basically a JB with a little bit of a Screamin' Demon flavour to it. She nailed it, obviously. But to get that sound, and to balance with the Cool Rails at the neck, I actually find that I've got it sitting quite far from the strings. Given that it's about a 15k pickup, you wouldn't expect to have it that low - so I suspect that maybe the blade is increasing the overall volume.