Why is bridge PU slanted on Strat types?

zappa70 · #1 September 8th, 2007

Why is bridge PU slanted?Is there a Sound reason for the other two to be perpendicular to the strings and the bridge PU angled?I am refering to strat types,with 3 singles.Or any setup like that.The bridge PU doesn't sit directly under the 3 high strings on mine.It gets progressively worse toward the high E.The top 3,low, do.Anyone know why?
Thanks to all in advance

PepticDust · #2 September 8th, 2007

My best guess is it's just for looks. I've heard various reasons like the bass strings don't vibrate close to the bridge so they need that side of the pickup further from the bridge. It could be true, but doesn't explain why you have Mustangs which have 2 singlecoils both slanted or Jaguars that have 2 single coils, which none ofare slanted.

Maybe a guitar techie can chime in here. But as far as I know, it's just for looks.

zappa70 · #3 September 8th, 2007

Yea I guess it does make the guitar look cooler!

Though the bass string vibs does make a bit of sense.

Thanks to all who even care!

krissovo · #4 September 8th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by zappa70

Though the bass string vibs does make a bit of sense.

It does make a difference, look at hendrix who played his rh axe upside down lh. It changed the tone of e and b strings and gave him a week bass

P-90 · #5 September 8th, 2007

My guess is that Fender felt that it made a real sonic difference. If you think about the Telecaster, they do the same thing there, although to a greater degree (they even make the tele's bridge pickup almost 1/4" longer, so that the pole pieces line up with the strings correctly), even though, in those days, almost everyone played them with the chrome cover over the pickup & bridge. I don't think they even anticipated that anyone would want to do otherwise, or the bridge pickups wouldn't have had their cosmetics totally ignored.

So I think it's because they were trying to keep the bridge pickup from sounding wimpy.

As for why they didn't lengthen the Strat's bridge pickup to get around the pole piece alignment problem, well, the Strat was one of the cheaper guitars of the Fender line, so they cut some corners. Funny to think, now, that they expected that the pros would mostly play Jaguars and Teles and Jazzmasters, with the Strat treated as a small notch above the student models.