Angled pickups: why?

[eniac]

Seems like Fender is always introducing some new model with some minor, sometimes insubstantial change to nudge sales up a bit. If they really wanted to hit the market with something meaningfully new -- and superior by the way, in my opinion -- they'd stop all that nonsense and issue a reverse P model. I guarantee I'd buy one, 100 percent, even though I already own three Precisions and have pretty much retired from playing live.

(Not that I have an opinion one way or another on the matter...)

 

[MattZilla]

Jens Ritter used to have a blurb somewhere on his site in the early 00s about slanting making the strings hit the magnetic field in a way that affects the eq response of the pickup vs that same pickup laid in perpendicular to the strings.

I don’t know if he still stands by that hypothesis/claim. He was seeming to be rather particular about exact angles for each pickup, IIRC, more slant on the neck pickup than the bridge one.

It also can possibly function to widen the aperature of the mag field exposed to and affected by any given string, possibly leading to a fattening similar to the difference between Tele pickups & P90s? Maybe that’s what Jens was driving at?

Position on the speaking length of the string is the strongest reason for a player to want pickups slanted one way or another.

As I started years ago EQing my D & G and just enjoying whatever Thunder results on the lower strings, I could imagine some sick-of-thick-studio-tone punks of the 70s-80s really wanting as much middy trebly gank on the G & D but still get some thunder on the low strings?

As bholder said, regarding why people with money to invest in the profitable musical instruments market in the pre-Bush/Quale years trying to get that sweet <30 year old male demographic money: the reason would’ve been 100% “novel aesthetics”, aka it just looked cool. Those products got made, marketed, distributed, and sold for a bit over a decade before flooding Music Go Rounds & pawn shops in the 90s-00s.

Warwick Thumb, I’m 98% sure, was designed in the 80s… in one of the most 80s-o-riffic countries on the planet. Even if its designer was a jaded marketer and only slanted the pickups to sell basses, I’d really like to try a copy with bladed 6 string pickups with an absurd amount of slant: both pickups near the neck at the G, both close to the bridge at the B. Probably a PITA to mix live, but fun on the couch.

 

[Gluvhand]

Where are you that you see the Fender Boxer series in the wild?

Here:
fender pb-555 - Google Search

Maybe I'm old and don't get the lingo but I thought seeing something "in the wild" meant seeing it out in public, live, and in-person, not in a Google search.

 

[sikamikanico]

Just adding that angling/slanting pickups makes a bigger difference when you have two pickups and use them on full. The two pickups interact and the angle influences what frequencies get cancelled and reinforced. That is clearly audible, much more than slanting one pickup soloed.

for example, this is why I don’t like most PJ basses, but like much better the reverse PJ basses.

 

[MCS4]

The position of the pickup is THE most effective way of completely changing the tone of a bass. Slanting the pickups like that will have a VERY noticeable effect on the tone. Whether you like it or not is a matter of taste.

This was my thought. I don't think anyone doubts that pickup position changes tone in general, so pretty much by matter of logic a bass with a slanted pickup will sound different than a straight one if everything else is equal, and in particular the string-to-string sound will be different because each string is effectively at a slightly different pickup location. So regardless of the reason someone chooses to build it way there will be a difference, and presumably some people will prefer it and some won't if they heard it a/b with straight pickup on the same bass.

 

[Deleted member 271037]

This was my thought. I don't think anyone doubts that pickup position changes tone in general, so pretty much by matter of logic a bass with a slanted pickup will sound different than a straight one if everything else is equal, and in particular the string-to-string sound will be different because each string is effectively at a slightly different pickup location. So regardless of the reason someone chooses to build it way there will be a difference, and presumably some people will prefer it and some won't if they heard it a/b with straight pickup on the same bass.

Exactly. Anyone with a multi-pickup bass, like a J-bass, will know that pickups in different positions sound VERY different. Closer to the neck will give you a warmer, fuller tone with more lows. Closer to the bridge will give you a brighter, thinner tone with more mids.

In fact, on multi pickup basses the pickups are usually voiced differently to effectively REDUCE these differences. If you used the exact same pickup for neck/bridge the differences would be even bigger!

Or to put it another way: Using a pickup spec'ed for the neck position in the bridge position could sound overly thin/bright and using a pickup spec'ed for the bridge position in the neck position could sound muddy, boomy, lacking in clarity.

The change in pickup position (relative to the bridge) from E to G when slanting the pickups like the bass in the OPs pics will DEFINITELY be audible.

 

[backin82]

The position of the pickup is THE most effective way of completely changing the tone of a bass. Slanting the pickups like that will have a VERY noticeable effect on the tone. Whether you like it or not is a matter of taste.

Most basses with slanted pickups are designed that way for tonal reasons of course, not to make a pickup work with a strings spacing it isn't designed for. If you're slanting a pickup ONLY to make it work with a string spacing it isn't designed for you could end up with a very poor tonal balanced across the strings. It might turn out ok but it would be blind luck.

Correct.

/thread

 

[fjbolebruch]

I always thought it was a clever way to compensate for tighter string spacing. I don’t like it though

 

[mambo4]

Where are you that you see the Fender Boxer series in the wild?

Well in this case "in the wild" means google searches and NBD posts

 

[bigdaddybass12]

Easy, it is done for a new angle on sound. Sounds angular !’

 

[GBBSbassist]

I often see these in the wild.

lmao, no way....

 

[bigdaddybass12]

Yes on should be angled the other direction. Clean up the lower string sounds, fatten up the high string sounds.

 

[Deleted member 365158]

I don’t know why they do it but I ended up slanting a j pickup when I added it with an existing mm style pickup. Slanting it made it so the poles lined up with the strings(it is a bridge J that I used closer to the neck)
When I was testing it for position and which way to slant it, I thought the d/g side would want to be closer to the neck, it ended up sounding better slanting the other way.

 

[bassdude51]

Probably makes very little difference in sound...........but from a point of logic, the D&G section of the pickup should be angled toward the neck in order to balance out the already high end of those 2 strings.

No readily available photos but here on TalkBass years back, I bought a loaded P body with the 2 P Bass coils reversed. The E&A one step south and the D&G one step north. There is a slight difference and improvement in sound.

Although I can't remember anymore, recently I saw an aftermarket P Bass (from Japan, I think) where the E&A coil was left in place but the D&G was 2 steps closer to the neck. That made sense to me in terms of logic. Would love to hear it!

 

[Chad Michael]

It seems to work well here, I like what i hear with (what I would call) the reverse slant ... Keep in mind, you need good speakers or headphones to appreciate this, your smartphone or tablet will not get there

 

[Dyerseve14]

Nothing else sounds like a Thumb! Mine are extra angled for extra Thumbness!

 

[Chad Michael]

Would be interesting to build a bass that has pickups that can be rotated, from reverse angle, to straight, to forward slant ... so one could experiment to seek real and audible difference. Maybe I am just captivated by the Roscoe LG in general

 

[Chad Michael]

Check out this guy... His bass has what I would call forward slant


Wish I could hear these clips with finger style playing for comparison

 

[Deleted member 271037]

I always thought it was a clever way to compensate for tighter string spacing. I don’t like it though

I've seen some home-made mods where I suspect this to be the case... But when done right it's really a way to tweak the tonal balance across the strings.

 

[Barticus]

I like the aggressive tone I get from them, allows a little more oomf from the higher strings too. For me it started with owning Thumb basses then it carried over into my custom builds, now almost all of my basses have this. I’m currently working on a new design and it features 2Js in the bridge position and 1J in the neck position, all slanted. Oh, and (I think) they look cool too.