7 and 8 string pole alignment

[jjm_8-string]

Hi all,

I have a couple of 8-string guitars and a couple of 7-string guitars. I would really like to know why Seymour Duncan (or any of the other major manufacturers, for that matter) cannot make neck pickups for 7 and 8 string guitars that even come close to aligning the pole screws with the strings. One of the 8-string guitars and one of the 7-string guitars I own, both from so-called budget/import guitar makers, come with very cheap pickups that I want to replace. However, even these cheap pickup manufacturers use a different pole spacing for the neck and the bridge pickups. How much trouble could it really be for our favorite pickup manufacturers to make tighter-spaced poles for the neck pickups (Sentient, for example)? I don't mean this to sound snide, I am actually very curious.

I know many people say that pole alignment with strings is really not that important, but it really can have a substantial impact on the focus and attack of a string, depending upon one's preferred setup. I love LOVE the Sentient, and have a 6, 7 and 8 string version. The 6-string version lines up very nicely, and sounds great. The 7 string version is pretty far off, and the 8-string version is WAY off the mark for the outer strings. It's far enough off the strings that it is all but unusable for me. SO disappointing.

I know these are relatively small-market products, but at upwards of $90-140 for these pickups (street price) I would think it not too much to ask for proper pole spacing!

Any one else have thoughts on this? Anything we can do to encourage Seymour Duncan to revise the product?

Justin

 

[Mr. B]

Re: 7 and 8 string pole alignment

Historically there have been a couple of "standard" string spacings for 6 string guitars. I wonder if that is true for 7/8 string versions, or if every maker is just doing what they want to?

 

[jjm_8-string]

Re: 7 and 8 string pole alignment

That's a good question, and I suspect like 6 string guitars there are a couple of spacings. Some 7- and 8-strings have fender-style bridges, which are spaced wider, I think, than the guitars with tune-o-matics. Even so, you would think that the neck pickups would be at least a LITTLE closer spaced than the bridge pickups, especially since very few people seem to mix and match bridge and neck pickups (i.e. put a neck-voiced pickup in the bridge position).

I know that string/pole spacing can be a bit of an issue with pickups on 6-strings, depending upon bridge vs. neck, but in the case of extended range guitars this issue is SO much worse since there's more width across which the spacing issues are multiplied.