Warmoth: Straight vs. Slanted Bridge Pick-up?

[Sirion]

My apologies if this has already been discussed; I couldn't find a thread for it. Warmoth recently did a shootout where they compared the same bridge humbucker in both straight and slanted position on the exact same guitar, which I though people here might find interesting:

For the most part I was surprised to find that I preferred the slanted humbucker for most of the purposes. Even with the single-note solo stuff I found that the slanted humbucker had a pleasant "singing" tone that the straight humbucker couldn't quite replicate. The straight humbucker shone, however, when it came to palm muted open strings. That is a big deal for many people into these styles; for thrash I would definitely recommend a straight humbucker, based on this video. What do you think?

I really look forward to hearing the 22- vs 24-fret neck humbucker comparison, too! I have a hard time making neck pickups sound, well, useful, so switching the position might work better for me.

Kῦδος to Aaron for the Night Ranger and White Lion content!

 

[ErikH]

That's pretty cool. The lows sound more rich with it angled vs. straight. I don't hear much difference in the highs. The whole reason for the angle to begin with was to get the poles to line up as much as possible. The screw pole lines up under the low E perfectly and the slug pole lines up perfectly under the high E, with the rest lining up across the pickup in some fashion. Yeah, it does affect the tone some but the poles lining up was the whole purpose. The bridge he has on there is slightly narrower than what Eddie had on the old Frankenstrat originally before the Floyd Rose ended up on it. He needs to use a wider spaced bridge to really see the string misalignment. I tend to like it like that though.

 

[Teleplayer]

I'm not sure if a JB is the right pickup for this demo. It would be more interesting to use a Duncan 78.

 

[Clint 55]

Slanted keeps the treble in about the same area and moves the bass back towards the neck so the bass increases. My favorite location is straight but just moved towards the neck 1/4 inch or so.

 

[Mincer]

I'm not sure if a JB is the right pickup for this demo. It would be more interesting to use a Duncan 78.

The JB can completely miss the poles and still sound great, so I'd be interested in hearing this with something closer to what Eddie actually used back then.

 

[beaubrummels]

Would have been interesting to hear a Trembucker also that doesn't need to be slanted.

 

[Sirion]

Well, for my money, a JB was a good choice. I don't particularly care for whether the gear is close to what Eddie used or not, but rather what can be done with modern gear - and the JB remains the industry standard as far as pickups is concerned. And the JB is probably closer to what most players interested in this configuration today would use.

Would have been interesting to hear a Trembucker also that doesn't need to be slanted.

I've also always been interested to hear what a slanted trembucker would sound like. I suspect the reason they cut it out here was because it would add a whole new level of complexity to the experiment (pickup switching, adjustments of pickup heights, possibly mismatches between the pickups etc).

 

[ErikH]

Honestly, I doubt there would be much difference between a slanted humbucker vs. trembucker. If anything, it might make the string alignment off slanted where a standard spaced is lined up better slanted.

The Whole Lotta Humbucker would be a great pickup to run through this test along with a proper wide-spaced 6-screw tremolo.

 

[Teleplayer]

Well, for my money, a JB was a good choice. I don't particularly care for whether the gear is close to what Eddie used or not, but rather what can be done with modern gear - and the JB remains the industry standard as far as pickups is concerned. And the JB is probably closer to what most players interested in this configuration today would use.

Fair enough, but if you are going to use an "industry standard" and well proven pickup / super-strat combination, then you don't need to mess with the slanted pickup routing. I just accept that JB + strat is something that already works, perhaps with a little bit of fine tuning.

 

[Mr. 80's]

I'm not sure if a JB is the right pickup for this demo. It would be more interesting to use a Duncan 78.

The JB was super popular back in the 80's especially in a slanted config. So It's a great choice for this demo IMHO.

 

[Teleplayer]

The JB was super popular back in the 80's especially in a slanted config. So It's a great choice for this demo IMHO.

May I ask, what advantage did you hear from the Slanted config in this demo?

 

[PFDarkside]

The low E chugs really do have an extra sag with the slant.

 

[Sirion]

Fair enough, but if you are going to use an "industry standard" and well proven pickup / super-strat combination, then you don't need to mess with the slanted pickup routing. I just accept that JB + strat is something that already works, perhaps with a little bit of fine tuning.

I don't really see the logic behind this. I for one thought that the results were enlightening. And, barring for the possibility that weak pickups may or may not sound experience signal loss for the E strings, is there any reason why the results wouldn't be transferrable to, say, a 78?

 

[Mr. 80's]

May I ask, what advantage did you hear from the Slanted config in this demo?

To be honest I didn't really watch the video. I just skimmed it quick to see what type of music he was playing. I only commented because IMHO the JB was/is a great choice for the demo.

 

[Juanhanglo]

The JB was super popular back in the 80's especially in a slanted config. So It's a great choice for this demo IMHO.

With a name like mr 80's, how can we argue this? Lol


i see merits to both ways. I could see slanting for something like a full shred working out better. Where something like a jb would be better straight.

My ocd would not allow a slanted pickup. Perhaps without a ring might be better, who knows.

I'd be open to experiment on a pickguard.

 

[Artie]

I didn't hear much, if any, notable difference. I would like to see them do this with the "Nighthawk" version of either the JB or 59. That pickup is actually designed to be slanted.

 

[Mincer]

In the 80s, most guitarists didn't do it because they heard a sonic difference. They did it because 'Eddie did it'. I don't remember a grand plan to get beefier lows. nor do I remember many experiments where people tried angled vs not in their own guitars. I do remember a flood of stock guitars with the angled pickup.

 

[Sirion]

In the 80s, most guitarists didn't do it because they heard a sonic difference. They did it because 'Eddie did it'. I don't remember a grand plan to get beefier lows. nor do I remember many experiments where people tried angled vs not in their own guitars. I do remember a flood of stock guitars with the angled pickup.

How nice, then, that we now can move beyond the fandom and hear what difference is actually makes.

(FWIW, as far as I can tell you're a great guy, Mincer, and I'm not trying to be antagonistic or stir anything up. But I think that this test shows that it is worth asking ourselves what the actual sonic differences are, and I will admit to being annoyed when this is attempted to be crammed into a little box that says "Eddie van Halen" on it. This may or may not be related with my general annoyance at Eddie overshadowing so many great guitarists from the era, but that is another matter for another day.)

 

[Teleplayer]

To me the straight version is a bit tighter in the low strings. The JB is sometimes criticised for being a bit loose in the bass, and when recording it may need a trap to limit the bass. I'm not a fan of flubby-ness on the low E string either. My basic logic was this slanted pickup route may work better with a pickup which has a brighter balance to start with. Apart from that, it was Eddies original application where he came up with the idea, so it would be interesting to reconstruct the experiment.

 

[solspirit]

To me the straight version is a bit tighter in the low strings. The JB is sometimes criticised for being a bit loose in the bass, and when recording it may need a trap to limit the bass. I'm not a fan of flubby-ness on the low E string either. My basic logic was this slanted pickup route may work better with a pickup which has a brighter balance to start with. Apart from that, it was Eddies original application where he came up with the idea, so it would be interesting to reconstruct the experiment.

This makes sense . . . I think