tilted pickups

Tux789

Tux789

Medicated Cryptologist
one aspect of the guitar that still elludes me is tilted pickups such as the bridge p'up on a S/S/S strat. I heard that the tilt does something to the treble tone.
first question: What exactly does this do?
i have also noticed some guitars with p'ups tilted thje opposite direction
second question: does this affect bass? what does this configuration do?
thanks in advace guys
 
Re: tilted pickups

I think it's to add depth to the low E string rather than to add highs to the hi E string. I think the low E would sound a little thin if the pickup wasn't angled back towards the middle pickup. Lew
 
Re: tilted pickups

Lewguitar said:
I think it's to add depth to the low E string rather than to add highs to the hi E string. I think the low E would sound a little thin if the pickup wasn't angled back towards the middle pickup. Lew
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so the pickups tilted in the opposite direction would help define the high E string?
 
Re: tilted pickups

leo fender had trouble hearing the high frequencies, which resulted in him slantin the bridge pickups so that the side that pickups up the high strings was closer to the bridge, which emphasizes the highs and makes them brighter and stronger...... if it were slanted towards the neck, the highs would be more round and warmer.......just think of it this way......if its slanted towards the bridge, its gonna sound more like a bright bridge pickup.....slanted towards the neck it sounds more like a neck pickup on that side of the pickup....of course, its all relative, cause its only gonna make some subtle differences, it will still sound like a bridge pickup

of course, on fenders, the slanted bridge pickup can account for the description of "ice pick" tone of some guitars and with bad pickups....just too bright
 
Re: tilted pickups

flank said:
leo fender had trouble hearing the high frequencies, which resulted in him slantin the bridge pickups so that the side that pickups up the high strings was closer to the bridge, which emphasizes the highs and makes them brighter and stronger...... if it were slanted towards the neck, the highs would be more round and warmer.......just think of it this way......if its slanted towards the bridge, its gonna sound more like a bright bridge pickup.....slanted towards the neck it sounds more like a neck pickup on that side of the pickup....of course, its all relative, cause its only gonna make some subtle differences, it will still sound like a bridge pickup

of course, on fenders, the slanted bridge pickup can account for the description of "ice pick" tone of some guitars and with bad pickups....just too bright
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i'm not sure what you mean be the statement in bold could you explain it to me
thanks
 
Re: tilted pickups

Tux789 said:
i'm not sure what you mean be the statement in bold could you explain it to me
thanks
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i just mean that if its slanted on the side for the high strings, they will sound rounder and warmer, like a neck pickup......and same is true for the the low strings......a strat pickup would sound better on the high strings if they were slanted toward the neck, but then too much bass would probably be lost from the bass side of the pickup being slanted toward the bridge, making the lows brighter and not as deep or present
 
Re: tilted pickups

so theoretically what would happen if you made a pick up shaped like this:
||||O
||O
O
O
||O
||||O
 
Re: tilted pickups

i have a guitar with a slanted humbucker, but thats just so you dont have to buy trembuckers
 
Re: tilted pickups

uh, i assume the mids would decrease if the bass and treble sides were in the spots they were originally were......or if the middle of it was the original spot, the treble and bass would increase
 
Re: tilted pickups

You might want to ring up the custom shop and order a X-shaped pup that way you could do some experiments and tell us the results. ;)
 
Re: tilted pickups

it's the same thing that makes neck and bridge pickups sound different. The closer to the bridge, the less the string vibrates. Quick vibrations make for a treblier tone as slower vibrations sound bassier. This is why the same pickup can sound a lot different depending on its possition.

So a slant towards the bridge will make the lower strings bassier and the higher strings treblier, and a slant towards the neck will do the opposite.

-X
 
Re: tilted pickups

LSP said:
You might want to ring up the custom shop and order a X-shaped pup that way you could do some experiments and tell us the results. ;)
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how the hell would you wind it?! :laugh2:

tom
 
Re: tilted pickups

Tux789 said:
so theoretically what would happen if you made a pick up shaped like this:
||||O
||O
O
O
||O
||||O
Click to expand...

Gibson had pickups like that for a certain flying V they had out late '70's or early '80's. IIRC they were 'buckers that matched the body shape...don't know how they sounded.
 
Re: tilted pickups

Imp said:
how the hell would you wind it?! :laugh2:

tom
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One of our bros (forgot his name), came up with that but it was proved impossible. I was just yanking Tux's chain hoping he would actually call the Custom Shop.

We could make this a little welcoming tradition, having recent members look up the X-shaped pup.

On a side note I think you could have 4 pups arranged in more or less x/star pattern. Don't know how it would sound... heck I don't know anything LOL
 
Re: tilted pickups

i was just thinking that if you split two vintage rails pickups in half then take each half and cut off the unused half of the halves of a vintage rail then in the middle use a pole peice:

4::::1
:\ / two quarters of one vintage rails
::O pole peice (in between the two mid strings)
:/ \ other two quarters
3::::2
attaching the pieces together but allow a small space in between the four quarters and the middle piece to wrap the winding around in a clover-shaped fashine with hot and groud wires coming out of each of the five sections conected to a five way switch. if we numbered the four quarters going clockwise starting with the upper right as one, and having the pole peice being always on, the switching would do the following:
1: 1 & 2 (shape: <)
2: 1 & 3 (shape: /)
3: all (shape: |)
4: 4 & 2 (shape: \)
5: 4 & 3 (shape: >)

oh and it will be a humbucker-sized pickup
Ha
 
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Re: tilted pickups

Tux789 said:
so theoretically what would happen if you made a pick up shaped like this:
||||O
||O
O
O
||O
||||O
Click to expand...


Assuming it's a bridge pickup and the bridge is to the right of your diagram, your two high E strings would sound very thin and bright, the B and A would be middling, and the D and G would be warmer and rounder with more honk. (If the bridge is to the left of your diagram, it would be the reverse.)

This is not hard to figure out once you understand the simple law of string tone:

1) The closer to the ends (bridge or nut) of the string you get, the less vibration there is and the less bass and more treble there is.

2) The closer to the middle of the string (12th fret) you get, the wider the vibration and the more low-mid and bass you get.

Thus any pickup will sound brighter in the bridge position than in either the middle or neck position, while the middle position (3-pickup guitar) will still be a little brighter than the neck, but not as bright as the bridge.

And keep in mind that this is nowhere near the same as just rolling the tone down on the bridge pickup -- the middle and neck pickup tones just have a completely different character that sound nothing like a bridge pu with the tone rolled down. It would be like rolling the tone down on a miked piano in hopes of making it sound like an organ.
 
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