Help or advice needed - pickup pole spacing trouble

[simonmaal]

Hi all

I ordered a hollow strat body with a contoured heel and a maple/rosewood fatback neck.  I finally got the thing put together by someone I know (a reputable guitar maker - maybe I'll have the guts to build the next one myself  :laughing7.  The feel of this baby is amazing; my massive hands get fatigued on most guitar necks, especially when playing barre chords around the fifth fret (which is, unfortunately, the part of the neck I play around), so the fatback really suits me!  And the tone of the guitar  :headbang1: amazing!!!

But I have one problem that is starting to bug me, and I mean really bug me.  First, I'll tell you the setup.  I got a strat floating tremelo fitted with a seymour duncan pearly gates in the neck position, a strat middle single coil and a SD custom custom in the bridge postion.  The nut uses the widest string spacing that Warmoth do.  The pearly gates pickup fits with the string spacing (only just), the middle pickup is slightly out and the bridge pickup - well, the high E string dosn't sit over its pole at all - absolutely no overlap.  I'm not sure how much this is affecting the tone but it sure looks terrible.  The person who built the guitar lined them up as best he could, and the other 5 strings are fine.  But I don't just want the guitar to sound good, I want it to look good.  The pickguard doesn't quite line up but I can perhaps live with that.  Do I need to change the tremelo system and if so, what tremolo will be the best fit for a seymour duncan custom custom?  I'm figuring the nut spacing is fine because the neck pickup is nicely aligned.

Can anybody offer me any help or advice please??!!!

 

[jackthehack]

You have pics? What brand/model of tremelo? Was the tremelo bought from Warmoth?

Hard to tell without a pic or precise measurements; if it's an import pickguard, I've seen them be "off" in various ways and won't use them.

It is possible to install the pickguard a little bit off, that could be an minor issue as sometimes you might need to move them such a little bit that one or more holes have to be filled back in as you're moving the pguard less than 1 mm.

What's throwing me here is that you say 5 strings are OK and just the E is off. If you have a Warmoth installed nut, that makes it sound like the problem is with the tremelo.

Can you upload pics/measurements?

 

[simonmaal]

Yeah the tremelo was a Fender American Standard I bought from Warmoth.  I'm gonna try to take some pics now and I'll get them posted as soon as possible.

 

[jackthehack]

Well I'm baffled pending pics; if the pickguard wasn't properly installed all pickup poles should  be off....

 

[Alfang]

Sounds like you need a diferent pick up  , you have the custom custom?  that is either an SH-11,  or  a  TB-11,  whichever you  have, you need the other.

The TB-11 is designed for wide bridges like the floyd rose, I dont know the string width for a Fender American Standard.

So the TB-11 has wider pole set than the SH-11    I know all this becaue I have the narrower SH-11 under a floyd bridge, the poles don't line up, but it sounds good anyway, I didn't know the diference between SH and TB when I ordered my pickup.  Seymour Duncan has all or most of the humbuckers in either TB or SH choice.

 

[Shmoopie]

go with a sd trembucker. there are three available.
http://www.seymourduncan.com/products/humbuckersdescr.shtml#Trembuckers153

http://files.seymourduncan.com/SDToneWizard/Hummer/Track46.mp3
http://files.seymourduncan.com/SDToneWizard/Hummer/Track47.mp3
http://files.seymourduncan.com/SDToneWizard/Hummer/Track51.mp3
http://files.seymourduncan.com/SDToneWizard/Hummer/Track53.mp3

or a dimebucker, that would work to.
http://files.seymourduncan.com/SDToneWizard/Hummer/SH13BridgeClean.mp3
http://files.seymourduncan.com/SDToneWizard/Hummer/SH13BridgeDirty.mp3