Middle Pup Location For Hss Guitar?

[stratoskier]

Hi,

I'm working on a project in which I'm converting a HSH guitar (with pickguard) to an HSS setup. The guitar was orginally a 24-fretter with an extended fretboard overhang, but I'm converting it to a 22-fret, with the new neck single coil sitting in the favored spot at approximately the old 24th fret location.

My question has to do with where to locate, or relocate the middle pup. The neck and bridge pickup locations are decided (keep old location for the bridge, and neck single loc as described above). I have a number of HSS guitars and it looks like they're all over the place. Some (for example an old Kramer) have the middle pup at the same location as on a regular SSS strat, such that the space between the neck and middle singles is about double that between the middle and bridge humbucker. Other makers seem to almost split the difference, with the two spaces (bridge-to-mid, and neck-to-mid) about equal. And then there's every variation in between.

I need to get a new pickguard made for this project, so I need to settle on the location for the middle pup. I'm not too worried about the underlying routing because by the time I routed for the neck single, it's almost a bathtub cavity underneath. I could put the mid pretty much anywhere.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Bert

[Tim37]

All that 24a fret node crap is a bunch of bs as soon as you fret a string the nodes change. Put your middle pickup where it looks the best.

[pan_kara]

but isn't the location of the neck pickup the reason for the notes fretted around 12th-15th fret having this funny distinctive sound?

I did get a funny sounding combination of neck + middle out of phase once, where notes around frets 17-18 were sounding as if played an octave higher that in reality (so I guess the first mode was being mostly canceled out).

I guess such interplay between pickup positions creates some character in the notes played at different positions.. but where to put the middle PU? I personally don't use it a lot, if I were to guess I'd go for regular spacing between the neck-middle and middle-bridge..

[stratoskier]

All that 24a fret node crap is a bunch of bs as soon as you fret a string the nodes change.

Yes, I'm familiar with the myriad discussions surrounding the "24th node = tonal nirvana" (or not!) business. That wasn't the intent of my question, but I agree that once you fret a note the node is shifted. That's obvious. However, the distance between wherever you're fretting and the neck pickup is still different according to whether the pickup is placed at that approximate 24-fret position versus when it's situated further away (as on a 24-fret neck guitar). I really don't care about the underlying physics -- single coils simply sound better to me when they live in that location.

Back to the middle pup question -- I guess I'll just put it wherever it looks OK. I was mainly curious why various builders make different choices with regards to its location. I suppose it depends largely on the tonal characteristics of whatever single coil pickup they prefer and maybe also on which coil is on when splitting the bridge humbucker.

Thanks for the input, guys!

[Tim37]

Pan did make a good point if you are looking to make an effect at certian fret locations i guess sitting down and figureing out the node points would needed.