Angled Neck Pup Sc

[TheCross]

hey, recently saw one of those rare to see SGs with a hum in the bridge and a SC in the neck pos... the neck SC is angled with the bass side facing the bridge... what sense does it make? making the wound strings more focused, due to a tad more trebble being closer to the bridge? if so, I'm kinda interested in that idea for my next hum-p90 build... do I need special pups for that? being a bit longer? the strings should run across the pole pieces, so I guess the possible agle won't be too big with a standard p90, would it? would it then even be worth the try compared to the possible effect?

who's got knowledge, ideas, experience?

cheerio

[rubber314chicken]

I'm not sure what effect it has, but If you do it, any pickup will work (just not a humbucker) for any angle up to about 15°, as long as the pole pieces are under the strings.

Edited August 17, 2007 by rubber314chicken

[Geo]

I imagine that angling the pickup would have little effect so far from the bridge.

[chennik]

You know, I used to believe that an angled pickup mattered less and less the further you go from the bridge, until I got my 80s yamaha RGX611, which has a H/S pickup configuration with the neck pu angled like a strat bridge pickup. The guitar sounds awesome with the bridge pickup, but the neck pickup didnt sound so hot. 3 pickup changes later, I have a jackson hot rails type in there and it sounds okay, but I took some single coils out of other guitars I had that sounded great in the neck on other, similar guitars (with straight neck pu orientation), but they didnt sound good in the angled neck position of the yamaha. I finally got the picture that it was the angle and position of the pickup that made them all sound that way, not the pickup itself.

Now, I'm wondering about a single coil bridge pickup that isnt angled. I'm going to start on a tele style w/ 2 strat pickups, and I'm debating on having the bridge pickup not angled. Not sure how that would sound though... Not sure if its worth trying or not.

As far as your reasoning for the effects on the sound, everything you said is true. I just look at it like this, the side angled toward the bridge will in effect sound more like a middle pickup. I'm not a big fan of middle pickups (certainly by themselves, though I occasionally use em in combos), so it goes to reason that I dont like angled neck pickups. That said, it is something you dont see too often, so it does lend itself to some unique nuances in the sound.