Joe Pass Guitar Pickup Position?

[Stringswinger]

Bruce Forman now lives in LA. He and I used to gig together once in awhile when he lived in Carmel Valley. I have played his signature Ibanez. Bruce loves that guitar and has played it a lot over the years (it has been refretted quite a few times). From what I understand, Bruce has gone back to playing his Norlin era L-5.

The JP-20 pickup design may have been as simple as this; Joe Pass asked the design team to give him some room between the neck and the pickup (where JP liked to fingerpick) AND he may have also wanted some extra frets. Perhaps the design team in a effort to please Joe let the pickup installation get in back of the harmonic (making it like a 1 pickup ES-330), Who knows? And Why care? The resulting guitar is pretty good. Try it and you will see.

[Cavalier]

Here is a entertaining review of a ES225T. There are certainly jazzier ones but it shows an open minded approach to 2 knobs and a pickup in the middle.

JP20s do sound different than a conventional neck pickup placement but between the amp and the tone control they have a wide range of tone. Playing chord melody I liked the placement of the JP20 pickup on the lower strings, wondered a bit on the higher ones and loved it on single line stuff.

[Tal_175]

I made some measurements today. I found out that the neck pickup of ES 175 is NOT placed further away from the bridge than longer scale guitars.

One cannot look at the distance from the bridge independently from the overall vibrating string length. Here is a comparison of ES 175 and Stratocaster neck pickup placements. Pickup distance measurements are between the saddle and the middle of the pickup.

Stratocaster: 6.25 inches. 6.25/25.5 =~= 0.23. ie 23 % of the string length.
ES 175: 5.75 inches. 5.75/24.75 =~= 0.23. ie. 23 % of the string length.

I didn't put the fractions because it changes based on the saddle position for the intonation adjustment. Small differences between strings, gauges etc.

So ES 175 neck pickup placement is exactly the same position as neck pickup of Stratocasters in relation to the string length.
I don't have an L5 but I bet if you make the same measurements on an L5 you'll find that it also has the same neck pickup placement.

[Tal_175]

Ok I have some doubts in my measurements of the Stratocaster as saddle distances vary more on that guitar. It might be closer to 24% on average. But the point stands as that's not as much a difference as it might appear if one doesn't take into account the scale lengths. In other words, had ES 175 neck pickup was flush against the fretboard, it wouldn't have been the same placement as the Strat neck pickup. It would have been much more away from the bridge proportionally.