As far as hitting the polepieces with the strings- the polepieces are still between 3/32 and 1/8" away from the strings when fretted at the last fret- which is a pretty common distance for pickup height, and is pretty close to where I had my pickups (not just the poles) set previously. I can hit the poles if I try, but I play pretty hard and have yet to hit them in practice (it would require pretty much mashing the string down hard against the fretboard first!). String tension would definitely play into that though.
I tried all manner of adjusting the pickups before messing with the poles, and wasn't able to find this noticeable of an effect with any of my other experiments. While angling the pickup will have a similar effect in theory, there simply isn't the range of adjustment available to get such a large imbalance in the coils responses like this (which I'm sure is not something that everybody would find pleasant anyway- it just worked for me and I felt related to the original topic).
and kinda off topic, but...
Sooo what are yout thoughts on single coil with bass boost?
Well...since you asked....
I personally think its "the cheese"!
It is to me the perfect passive solution to getting the clarity of a single coil mated with the girth of a humbucker. Normal series setting for side-by-side humbuckers (especially on the G&Ls) tends to accentuate the midrange a little too much for me while rolling off the high end- the result being a really "honky" and dull kind of tone. By cutting the treble from one coil, there is none of that treble harmonic cancellation from the 2 coils sharing similar frequencies, but there is still a touch of that accentuated midrange that keeps it growly- so you get the whole package- clear highs, growly mids and deep lows (at least to my ears!).
Fender was a genius with so many of his designs, but "single coil with bass boost" is one that really sticks out for me because of all its many possible applications. I've borrowed the idea for 2 other instruments as well- My Darkstar'd Jazz and my ASAT Special guitar. The only difference being that instead of side-by-side coils in one pickup, both of these instruments have 2 single coil pickups- so I added a switch that puts the 2 pickups in series (simialr to the S1 switching in some Fender Jazz basses) with a capacitor bleeding the highs out of the neck pickup (using a .1uf cap in the bass and a selectable .047 or .022uf cap in the guitar). In the Jazz, this setting is just massive- really fills out the mids, which are generally kinda flat in the Darkstars (not scooped- but just less accentuated than with alot of pickups), while adding this huge "cushion" to the lows and retaining the sweet clarity in the highs from the bridge pickup! In the guitar, it changes the stock "tele-like" twang to a full on (but still sparkly sounding) humbucker tone.
Anyways- I love it! While on the subject, I wish that passive bass cut was a more widely used idea as well- It may not be as neccesary in alot of instruments, but I recently added that circuit to the Darkstar'd Jazz and it really opened up alot of possibilities as well!
Karl
) along with the hum, and the higher harmonics are the most obvious loss. Raising the polepieces so much on one coil seems to imbalance the output between the coils enough that you don't lose (as much of) those higher harmonics (but still humbucking- kinda similar idea to the "dummy" coil under the pickguard used on Musicman basses with the single coil neck pickup)- but it still changes the character of the mids and lows depending on whether the coils are in series or parallel with each other. In other words- it did what I was aiming for! And don't even get me started on "single coil with bass boost"!
