Radius Neck + Flat Pickup = Huh?

It doesn't really make that much difference.

 

I want to put one of these in a Bronco.( already have 2 )Narrow spacing. Perfect. Adjustable poles to balance radius.Waaay more range than most mudbuckers. They're around. Guild humbucker.

Re your original concern, flat pole single coil pickups ala S.C. precision and jazz have been going in radiused basses forever.

 

Are you talking about two section P bass type pickups?

Each section only handles two strings. And each end of a section
is height adjustable. The inner ends of the pickups can be raised
to follow the radius, and often are.

 

He's talking about single coil P bass pickups.

 

Like such. You're going to find pole spacing an issue on a bronco (narrow). Some have used Rail type Strat pickups w. good. results. The super distortion models have a bass pickup tone profile. Don't let the name throw you a curve, they don't have to be distorted, the big fat bottom just makes it easier to do in a guitar.

 

Cool Glenn. I have mine modded for coil splitting.

 

I notice a disparity if the flat pickups are close to the strings. Crank them down away from the strings helps. I've also tried "shims" that sit on the tops of the middle poles to effectively raise the pole pieces closer to the strings. That works well if you want to be close to the strings.

 

flat pickups under radiused bass strings bug me, too; you get hot outer strings and weak inner strings.

the only setup fix is to drop the pickup away to where the relative differences in string distance get reduced.

(haven't tried the shim thing yet, not sure how well they'd stand up to getting hit with fingers or pick over and over.)

 

The old Hagstrom single coils (not Bi-Sonics) use the shim (more like an extension) approach. The coils are wound around bar magnets, and the "poles" are just little metal pieces that fit in the top of the pickup cover.

A lot of people use the SD QP with the vintage Fender radius and seem pleased.

 

A piece of steel rod the same diameter as the pole pieces cut to a mm or 2 that is attached to the top of the pole pieces with a little super glue as well as the magnetic force. I tend not to play over the top of pickups so durability is not an issue for me.

I did this on a Jazz and it worked well. With my MM SR5 I just keep the pickups very low and that works as well.