Suhr pickup huge poles pieces adjustable ???

[Doug Parent]

I read on someones post that the huge slugs on the John Suhr pickups that Fender used in the 90's in their basses are adjustable. Really? How?

Anyone?

[interstatejoe]

I have a 4 string set of those Suhr pickups and I don't recall them having adjustable pole pieces...

[walterw]

i don't believe it. they would have the coil wire wound right against the poles, so trying to force a pole up or down would likely break the coil.

besides, there's no reason. they already have a decent radius to them, so it's just a matter of adjusting the whole thing up or down.

OT, but i ran into a set recently and discovered something pretty weird; they're each built out-of-phase!

they're a side-by-side coil design like dimarzio uses, but instead of one coil being RWRP from the other, the two coils are the same magnetic polarity but with one wired backwards. this would cause hideous cancellation if both coils were sensing the same string, but since they don't, they sound normal but the hum gets canceled.

the other problem with backwards-wiring a coil, namely the magnets being wound against the hot end and becoming noisy, is handled by that custom metal strip underneath that grounds out all the poles.

[Doug Parent]

Thanks Walter very interesting indeed. The B string volume is slightly less than the E and A, hence the purpose for the original question. And, these pickups will likely end up on my Warmoth Deluxe 5 which has a 10" radius, not sure if thats more or less than my Fender ADV neck.

[jscomposer]

Originally Posted by Doug Parent

Thanks Walter very interesting indeed. The B string volume is slightly less than the E and A, hence the purpose for the original question. And, these pickups will likely end up on my Warmoth Deluxe 5 which has a 10" radius, not sure if thats more or less than my Fender ADV neck.

Sure it's the pickup and not the strings? Low-B can be finicky.

[BigOldHarry]

Originally Posted by jscomposer

Sure it's the pickup and not the strings? Low-B can be finicky.

+1

And I had a Suhr J, and the pole pieces were not adjustable.

[Doug Parent]

Originally Posted by jscomposer

Sure it's the pickup and not the strings? Low-B can be finicky.

I switched the pickups to another bass (ash/maple) and the B is stronger. Because the of the strong magnetic pull I cannot raise the pickup past a certain point without some insane chorusing past the 12th fret. This seems to be the design limitations of these pickups with such large pole pieces. But these sound really great, and I'm thinking about trying the Delanos with a similar design now.

[SGD Lutherie]

Originally Posted by Doug Parent

I switched the pickups to another bass (ash/maple) and the B is stronger. Because the of the strong magnetic pull I cannot raise the pickup past a certain point without some insane chorusing past the 12th fret. This seems to be the design limitations of these pickups with such large pole pieces. But these sound really great, and I'm thinking about trying the Delanos with a similar design now.

If the pole pieces are magnets, you will get more string pull. If the pole pieces are steel charged by magnets, you wont get as much string pull.

This is one of the reason Fender Jazz pickups don't have one large pole under the string.