The Mod Squad
Nope, nothing to do with leaving the pub, but when is the right time to forget ‘vintage’ and investigate a modern polepiece stagger? How about now, suggests Dave Burrluck…
The ‘vintage versus modern’ dilemma is exemplified by the most common and most simplistic pickup (well, nearly) ever invented: Fender’s single coil. Six rod magnets are pressed through fibre top- and bottom plates to form a bobbin around which a coil of very fine wire is wound. Solder two larger-diameter pieces of wire to the start and finish of that coil and, hey presto, you have one of the most studied pieces of 50s technology ever invented.
The type of magnet and the type of wire – its diameter and coating, not to mention the way in which it’s wound and potted – are the subject of huge debate yet there is one feature of that classic design that seems so archaically wrong: the staggered heights of those 0.185-inch-diameter rod magnets.
“Historically, staggered-polepiece pickups were standard on Stratocasters for 20 years before they were replaced by straight-across flush-pole pickups in 1974. They didn’t come back until the early 1980s. The Telecaster received staggered polepieces in the 1960s,” Fender tells us, before acknowledging a couple of spanners in the works…
“Light-gauge and round-wound guitar strings didn’t exist when the Stratocaster was introduced in 1954. At that time, the third string (G) was flat-wound like the E, A and D strings, but its output was lower, so Fender compensated by raising the polepiece under that string. Once light-gauge sets with unwound G strings became available years later, the same staggering arrangement was no longer necessary. The later introduction of brighter-sounding round-wound strings also affected polepiece height preferences.
“We use the 50s stagger because it’s ‘vintage’ and folks are used to a certain string balance that this causes” Tim Shaw
And since fingerboard radius options have changed since the 1950s, so, too, have pickup staggering arrangements. It’s not at all uncommon today for polepiece arrangements to be referred to as vintage, hybrid or custom staggers.”
“We use the 50s stagger because it’s ‘vintage’,” explains Fender’s Tim Shaw, “and because folks are used to a certain string balance that this causes. Sometimes with us, the ‘because we did it before’ answer is the simplest one. But we have several other solutions for this as well. The American Pro uses what’s called the American Standard stagger, which is balanced more for modern strings. I used a symmetrical stagger on the Player series that more or less mirrors the fingerboard radius; it also meant that there was no ‘right-hand’ or ‘left-hand’ pickup model, which was useful at that price point. And the 70s ‘no stagger’ stagger also works as well – that’s part of the Vintera spec.”
The ‘Cure’
Plenty of makers have attempted to ‘cure’ this incorrect vintage or 50s stagger. Flat ‘flush’ poles, for example, can be offered for a flatter fingerboard radius – likewise, custom staggers that aim to compensate. And players and tweakers have cured the problem themselves by simply pushing down the tall G string magnet, which can work, but it’s a crapshoot. Remember the wire is wound directly onto the magnet, and the wire’s coating is extremely thin so any disruption could create a short inside the heart of the pickup: not good. Fender redesigned the bobbin of the production single coil with a one-piece plastic moulding – you can alter the stagger with this style, but we’d advise caution.
But does this fixed-height vintage magnet stagger matter? Well, the ‘no’ camp will insist that it’s vintage and therefore it must be right. The ‘yes’ camp, however, might bemoan the obvious string output imbalance with the plain G string typically dominating the B string and to a lesser extent the D string – and it’s this group who Bedwas-based Radioshop Pickups is targeting with its new ID:63GT single coils for Stratocasters, which are available in a choice of 7.25-, 9.5-, 12-inch and ‘Vintage Adjusted’ magnet staggers. We ordered up a set of the 7.25-inch radius to match the fingerboard on our first-generation Road Worn Strat. Will our world change?
Tuning In
Getting to know a pickup maker takes a little time. This is the second set of scratchplate-mounted Radioshop ‘ID’ Strat-style pickups that I’ve tried and, along with a couple of rewinds, I’m impressed with their professionalism, not to mention the neat and tidy builds and the tidy clothcovered wiring as here. Swapping over the scratchplates takes minutes.
There are a couple of differences here, however. You’ll notice that the polepieces protrude through the base fibre plate in the reverse stagger we see on the top. All the magnetic polepieces are the same height – whereas vintage designs used magnets of different heights to achieve that stagger. Also, slightly different to the previous ID set is the baseplate on the bridge pickup, which has open holes surrounding the outer pairs of poles due to that stagger.
I set the pickup heights to Radioshop’s suggestions, which are 2.2mm on the bass side and 2mm on the treble side, from the top of the magnet to the underside of the string fretted at the top fret. This is a very workable starting point, less tilted from treble-to-bass than I’d usually use. Certainly, clean and by design, the string outputs are more balanced, which creates a subtly more refined Strat-like voice on the neck and middle. The bridge pickup’s baseplate seems to give a little more punch that’s far from over-thin or bright and sits very well with a rockier, crunchier amp. The ‘ID’ aspect of the design that includes reduced wax potting is perhaps harder to evaluate, but I’m liking what I hear.
In a completely saturated marketplace of ‘improved’ retrofit single-coil pickups, it’s good to see a company offering a slightly different flavour, which might well prove very useful for us modders, not to mention guitar makers who are looking to burnish these old design blueprints.
Plenty of makers have attempted to ‘cure’ this incorrect vintage or 50s stagger with flat ‘flush’ poles or custom staggers