Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

R

Ricey

New member
Does trembucker or F spacing make a significant difference? I just picked up a 1990 Charvel Fusion Plus with a Schaller Floyd Rose style bridge. A previous owner swapped the stock Jackson pups for a pair of active Reflex Silver pups. The Reflex's have massive gain and compression, ideal for single note melody lines in instrumental Rock tunes, but limited attack and punch.

I have a regular spaced Duncan Custom and a vintage Jackson pup laying around in my "Parts" box, but neither are trembucker spaced. I would like to throw them in the Charvel and save some money, but not if tone would suffer appreciably.
 
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Re: Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

Does trembucker or F spacing make a significant difference?
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Not in my experience. I think this is a case of marketing savvy over naked reality.
 
Re: Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

I noticed that reviews for identical trembucker versions are sometimes lower than for the regular versions.
 
Re: Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

That's because trembuckers are often used with Floyds. One important thing to remember is that people often see that trembuckers have a higher DCR and then incorrectly assume that they have a different tone than their standard spaced counterparts.
 
Re: Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

It is more significant with vintage-output pickups where the smaller string can completely miss the poles. On some guitars, you certainly an hear it. With pickups like a JB, I'd say it matters a lot less, except to OCD.
 
Re: Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

Aren't some of the older non-OFR floaters a bit narrower spacing than the real OFR? IIRC the trem on my old 80s Charvel was smaller than OFR.
 
Re: Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

That's very interesting! Both my "Floyds" are licensed Schaller units on 1990 Jackson/Charvels, so I don't have an OFR to compare them to. I would be very interested if somebody who has both types could get measurements to verify if that is correct. I will have to measure the pole pieces on my regular spaced Custom and see if they are narrower than the strings on my guitars. I just assumed that I needed a Trembucker because I had "Floyds".
 
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Re: Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

Stick the pups over the strings and see if the strings pass over the poles. Trembucker spacing isn't guaranteed to line up perfectly anyways.
 
Re: Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

How about the other way around, will using trembuckers with regular spaced bridges possibly have an effect on tone? I am usually buying trembuckers for the bridge positions even for non-trem bridges, assuming because the strings will fall within the compass of the poles with any type of bridge this way, even though they don't line up perfectly, there is less risk for weaker sound on any strings than with using smaller spaced humbuckers used with tremolo bridges. So I go for the Trembucker as the more versatile option by this logic.
 
Re: Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

stupendous silly said:
How about the other way around, will using trembuckers with regular spaced bridges possibly have an effect on tone? I am usually buying trembuckers for the bridge positions even for non-trem bridges, assuming because the strings will fall within the compass of the poles with any type of bridge this way, even though they don't line up perfectly, there is less risk for weaker sound on any strings than with using smaller spaced humbuckers used with tremolo bridges. So I go for the Trembucker as the more versatile option by this logic.
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Actually that logic is "stupendously silly" because it is just the opposite, especially if you bend the upper strings while playing. If you have a TB spaced bridge pup the higher strings are already inside the poles of the pup. You're starting out with the strings slightly off of the poles and if there is any affect, it will be toward a weaker sound. Bending the strings moves them even further away from the poles making your sound noticeably weaker still.

Regular spaced pups are actually way more versatile than TB pups.
 
Re: Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

Discharged said:
What exactly make you say that?
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Experience. I have a few guitars with adjustable string spacing and some combination of standard steel pole humbuckers, magnet pole humbuckers, and standard singles. The pole piece spacing doesn't make a huge difference with a regular bucker. But the singles and magnet pole bucker are much more sensitive and susceptible to balance issues when I change the spacing for any reason. I usually wind up having to angle the pickup height in some fashion to compensate.
 
Re: Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

GuitarDoc said:
Actually that logic is "stupendously silly" because it is just the opposite, especially if you bend the upper strings while playing. If you have a TB spaced bridge pup the higher strings are already inside the poles of the pup. You're starting out with the strings slightly off of the poles and if there is any affect, it will be toward a weaker sound. Bending the strings moves them even further away from the poles making your sound noticeably weaker still.

Regular spaced pups are actually way more versatile than TB pups.
Click to expand...
I never bend the upper strings, they break so easy, I am against that.
 
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Re: Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

If your strings break just from bending, you have bigger problems than having them line up with pup poles.

Do they usually break at the same place? ie: at the ball end; at the saddles; at the tuning pegs.

I've got some guitars with 8s on, and bend like crazy and never break a string.
 
Re: Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

Uhm ... choices choices. I would need enough clarity for Black Metal minor chords, but I’m not at the level of Mark Holcomb:)
 
Re: Trembucker vs. Regular spacing?

I would suggest Custom Shop offer an in-between-spaced option for those who can not decide. But then I realized that would make the options three. Damn OCD...
 
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