Angled bridge AND straight neck hb questions

[Archie Macfarlane]

Hey I'm in the process of smoothing out (many) things for a build. I know It will have 22 frets HSH and be 24.75" conversion necked.

Fwiw ill be attempting PRS and Fender esque in between sounds from it

1. Does anyone know how an angled bridge HB affects both HBers selected together?

2. How this affects the split to inner coils tone?

One thing that popped into my head was if i get the angle i could achieve a sound somewhere between a PRS 22 and 24 when split to the inner coils, however it might also sound too similar to the bridge/middle on together

Hope this made sense apologies if your brains exploded.

 

[Cagey]

My guess is you won't know what it'll sound like until you do it. Even if it's been done before, the results would not likely be reproducible as there are other factors that affect a guitar's characteristic sound, and they are unlikely to be matched in what you put together. Different neck geometry, differences in material, scale length, playing style, pickup behavior... the list is long. Pickup placement and angle is experimented with from time to time, but outside of gross characteristics (bridge-adjacent positions are "brighter" than neck positions) I'm not sure anyone learns anything worth repeating other than that the differences aren't worth discussing.

The problem is all the discussion about the locations of nodes and maximum amplitude of various harmonics, etc. goes out the window as soon as you fret a note or chord, because all those locations change based on the new vibrating length of the string(s). So, unless all you ever play is open strings, all the information about what the pickup(s) see(s) is useless.

There's some good explanation about string harmonics/nodes here with pictures to show what's going on if you're interested.

 

[Sovereign_13]

I was always under the impression that people angled bridge humbuckers to try and compensate the pole spacing for the slightly wider string spacing at the bridge, as opposed to any tonal reasoning.  This kind of fell by the wayside when pickup makers started offering "trembuckers" - slightly wider-spaced versions of pickups for this exact purpose.

As to what tonal characteristics you might expect... well, like the infinitely-more-knowledgeable Cagey said, you probably won't know for sure until you try.  Speaking in broad terms, I would expect a little more brightness on the higher strings and a little less on the lowers. 

Allegedly, Leo angled his bridge pickups (and invented his tremolo) to try and emulate that bright lap-steel sound on the higher strings.  He may have been trying to even out the tonal difference between the wound and unwound strings.  He may also have had no idea what he was doing since he was a businessman and not a musician.

Overall I wouldn't expect a whole lot of difference between angled and straight bridge pickups, but sometimes strange things happen for no apparent reason because of underlying and difficult-to-predict physics.

 

[stratamania]

The Stratocaster was designed by Freddie Tavares, more than Leo. Tavares was a musician and also played steel guitar so perhaps there is some truth in what was suggested in the previous post.

 

[cdub]

I can only offer that I ordered, on a whim, a reverse angled bridge pickup for my first top routed strat build, and it turns out that I much prefer a standard angle. I agree that the angled bridge humbucker will make the high strings more "bridge-ey" and probably will add volume and a peaked mid quality.

According to EVH, he angled whatever 'bucker he crammed into that miserable guitar he 'assembled' As a compensation for the narrower pole spacing. I'm thinking the Kramers and other such pointy imitators featured an angled bridge bucker as if some voodoo would be imparted. Washburn makes strat style guitars with three perfectly perpendicular pickups, pals. No angle??? Mind blown :tard:

 

[Archie Macfarlane]

You know I'm kinda wondering what a triplet of HSH bill Lawrence pickups would be like with the blades and all

 

[Cagey]

I can only say that I've never heard a Bill Lawrence pickup that I didn't like or wouldn't use again. But, that's just me. I would go on to say that some of them I would highly recommend, if you want vintage sound without the noise. His "Microcoil" designs are fantastic in that regard. I've got corresponding sets in a Strat and Tele both that I'll never change. Finally, I've not had good luck mix 'n' matching single coils and humbuckers of anybody's design in a single guitar. The pickups generally sound good on their own, but when paired have been less than thrilling. But, again, that's just me. Your mileage may vary, and all that.