Phat Cat with polepieces removed

[D-Slugger]

I was under the impression that removing polepieces basically turned off the pickup for that string, so I was planning to remove the pole pieces on my neck pickup from the EAD strings and the bridge pickup from the GBE stings. But, being (experi-)mental, I decided to pull the all the screws from the neck pickup and see what happened... I love it! The output is lower, but not by a huge margin. In the neck of a maple semi-hollow it almost sounds like an acoustic this way. Has anybody ever tried this?

Does anybody know how I am sill getting ouput? Is the magnet strong enough to generate the necessary field without the polepieces? Is the metal cover the critical element?

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Phat Cat with polepieces removed

The Phat Cat, like the P90 on which it is based, employs two bar magnets. Clearly, the field generated is sufficient to reach the space in which your strings vibrate, just less concentrated than it would be with the polepiece screws in place.

in my opinion, placing a metal cover around a P90 single coil does change its sound compared to the plastic "soapbar" and "dogear" covers. One is not necessarily better than the other. I just happen to prefer one over the other.