Does rotation position of pickup matter?

[kmaclean]

I bought a set of SD Psyclones and wanted to know if it makes any if I rotate the bridge pickup 180 degrees during setup. Would it affect the tone at all, or are the pickups fairly symmetrical? The reason I ask is that I'm installing them in a hollow-body build (similar to a Gretsch White Falcon). The lead wire on the pickup is on the high E side of the pickup making it about 2 inches too short to reach the volume pot (without crossing over the F-hole). However, if I rotate the pickup so the lead wire is on the low E side, then the lead wire is just long enough to reach the volume pot.

So my options seem to be
1) Rotate the pickup, or
2) Add length to the lead wire (hot and ground)

I'd rather not add length to the lead wire if the simple fix is to just rotate the pickup. I just don't want to sacrifice tone.

Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated.

[jeremy]

welcome to the forum!

most duncans have symmetrical coils, i dont know about the psyclones specifically but im assuming they are symmetrical which means you can flip away with no tonal change since the pole pieces are the same on both coils as well

[idsnowdog]

Rotating a pickup does make a difference if it only has one row of adjustable screws. If there are two rows of adjustable screws there's no reason to rotate it. Basically with one row of screws when you rotate it the screws are closer to the strings which means the strings are being sensed in a different place. You can then raise those screws to tune the tonal balance. In your case, it shouldn't make much difference since both coils are symmetric and both rows of screws can be adjusted.