Adjusting Stratocaster Pickups

[randyc]

OK, guys, this is a weird post. On another forum, a question was posed about using a Fender Stratocaster for jazz - an individual preference - and how to adjust the pickups. There may be one or two of you that find this experience useful, so FWIW ...

First, I'm not a Fender expert (I own the '73 Strat pictured below - put a lot of miles on this guitar back in the day - enough to require refretting - but it's the only Fender I've ever owned except for my Jazz Bass). Other than P-90 Gibsons, it's the only single coil guitar I've ever owned, now that I think of it…



Stratocaster pickups are adjustable but it's not easily done. I did this once only, a LONG time ago, it was a true PITA. There are probably more efficient ways that the Fender experts know, however this is my recollection from thirty years back.

1 Remove strings and pickguard (with electronics).

2 From the rear of the pickguard, push all of the magnets on all of the pickups "up" until they are almost flush with the bottom of the coils.

3 Re-install pickguard and install the strings that you're CERTAIN you'll be using.

4 Push down all of the magnets from the top until they are about 1/16 below the strings, when fretted at the last fret (use a capo to make tis easier).

5 Move the capo on the tuned guitar to around the tenth fret.

6 Attach the guitar output (you'll need an adaptor, easily home-made) to a digital multi-meter, adjust the DMM setting for 2 volt A.C. RMS range.

7 Pluck the individual strings, with volume, tone controls at maximum settings, observing the voltage measurement (it will take a second or two to get a valid measurement).

From my notes, The RMS output voltage for the various pickups were as follows: neck pickup about 30 mV, middle pickup about 25 mV, bridge pickup about 20 mV.

8 CAREFULLY push down the individual magnets of the selected pickup to obtain the approximate voltages described above when plucking the strings - try to be consistent about the plucking. I used a bamboo skewer (grocery store product for barbecuing) to push the magnets around.

The adjustment won't assure that all of the strings are of equal amplitude but they will be of equal output voltage. Our hearing varies (both sensitivity and frequency range) so radically with age, gender and other experiences that it's not possible to provide more guidance than this. One might tinker with the magnet adjustment further, to individual taste but I wouldn't recommend it. It's best to get a fairly "flat" response and then adjust the amplifier EQ to individual taste.

Be CAREFUL, it's a monster PITA to re-adjust a magnet that's been pushed too far down J

Cheers,
randyc

[SamBooka]

Uh.. you know that fender pickup poles are not supposed to be adjustable.
You can do this if you want but you run the risk of breaking the winding where the coil touches the magnet. The better the coil is waxed, the greather the chance of a break in the wire (and in the 70s the lacquer used by fender was notorious for drying out and becoming brittle. I dont know what the penetration was like but with 70s strat pickups going for a couple hundred used I dont want to find out)

My 74 Tele bridge pickup has one slug that I was able to do this to and almost dumped when I was able to push it back in.

[gpmedium]

Randy,

To be honest, I've never heard of anyone adjusting the individual magnets on a Stratocaster pickup. Most of the time when someone mentions adjusting pickup height on a Strat, they mean adjusting the whole pickup via the two mounting screws.

I'm sure that you get a more balanced output via your method, but I believe you could potential damage the pickup, as SamBooka said. Obviously you were extremely careful and did not, but someone else might not be as successful as you were.

As a side note, different Stratocaster time periods had different types of stagger, in an attempt to compensate for a lack up pole piece adjustment.

[randyc]

Thanks, gentlemen, glad that wiser folks have pointed out the danger of what I did. My guitar had some "Q-dope" substance on the underside of the pickup, holding each magnet in place after factory adjustment, I surmised at the time. Frankly, I'd forgotten about that until your posts! As l recall, it wasn't much effort to remove that stuff, I just picked it away with an exacto knife. The magnets then slid - with some resistance - up and down. After adjustment, the magnets didn't seem like they wanted to move, so I didn't bother re-potting them to the pickup.

I just took a closer look and none of the magnets have dropped down beneath the top of the plastic pickup cover. I haven't played the guitar in years, though, except without amplification when I clean and wax it. I probably should plug it in and make sure all is well I did warn that I'm not a Fender guy.

Will re-check function of the pickups with amplifier and see if all is well. In the meantime I defer to the wisdom of colleagues and will no longer recommend doing this -

cheers,
randyc

[randyc]

The '73 sounds fine, although my ears aren't a good measurement instrument. I repeated the measurements with the DVM that I posted above - at first I thought the magnets had slipped because the readings weren't consistent but I realized that the strings that are on the guitar now are nowhere near what I used to put on them in the seventies/eighties (slinky's).

One of the magnets was sticking out enough so that I could get the needle-nose pliers around it. For curiosity, I checked the movement - it will still move up/down but requires a bit of pressure.

I took a <brief> look on the Fender website, doing a search on pickup adjustment, I also pulled up a couple of Tele and Strat owner's manuals and read them. I found nothing that suggests that the magnets can't be moved (and no warnings about moving them). The adjustment procedures describe using the tilting/height screws, just as the Gibson manual describes for pickup adjustments, even though humbuckers obviously have individual string adjustment.

So I wonder about this - does anyone have a factory reference that contradicts my adjustment? I would really like to know because if the procedure is valid, I'd like to add it as an appendix to the vacuum tube amplifier book. (Which, by the way, has already been substantially updated. A new chapter has been added, detailing a design, from start to finish, using only the five spreadsheets briefly described previously.)

Thanks,
randyc

[SamBooka]

I dont have any fender docs that say you cant but remember: the windings are wound directly on to the slugs. Fender would not have promoted this idea if the windings couldnt stand up to more than a few adjustments before completely destroying the pickup (when you break the winding on the inside.. you just destroyed your pickup).

Also, I have never heard of people doing this intentionally before. Doesnt mean anything, just speaking from experience.

Finally (whew).. they dont call them non-adjustable poles for nothing

[gpmedium]

Hello Randy,

I don't have any factory references that contradicts your adjustments. I do have Donald Brosnac's Guitar Electronics for Musician's. In it he describes the Fender Stratocaster pickup and how it is made.

One item of note is how much care must be taken as the wire is bent around the ends of magnets one and six, because if the insulation is broken, oxidation and crystallization can occur. Both can destroy the wire and ruin the pickup.

My concern was that moving the pole pieces, specifically the outside two, friction could possibly damage the coil winding, as they are directly touching.

But, if you are extremely careful, as you were, you could probably do it and get a satisfactory result.

It is interesting to note some believe staggered height pickups produce great tone and others believe that staggered height pole-pieces are unnecessary to the light gauge strings used on most Stratocasters.


Regards,
Gary

Looks like SamBooka got the response in before I did.

[gpmedium]

Randy,

I've read over your procedure several times and I'm always amazed at how well you document everything.

Realizing that you performed this several years ago, I assume that your goal was a balanced output between strings. I was wondering if you were unable to find a suitable "compromise" pickup height using the standard method or were you experimenting to achieve a more perfect string balance?

Regards,
Gary

[randyc]

Thanks gentlemen, if you'd care to pursue the topic just a little bit further:

So a potential inference might be that the pickup could be height adjusted, then tilted until poles one and six have the required output voltage. Then poles two through five could be adjusted as I described, producing equal output voltage from all six poles without undue stress. Does that sound reasonable to you guys?

Gary, this is pure speculation since it was over twenty years in the past but I think that, with the strings that I was commonly using at the time (changing them as frequently as I did, sometimes twice a week), the strings needed to be cheap. The result was a "tinniness", especially in the upper registers, that I was attempting to EQ. Also, my main amplifier at the time was an Ampeg Reverberocket (which I also still own) that had one-knob EQ, pretty limiting.

At the time, gigs were varied and not always in pleasant places if one was playing pop/country styles. I bought the strat for $250 and didn't really care if it got beat up a little. BUT it was being asked to do things that it wasn't designed to do so I was constantly fiddling with it to get a compromise. Later I bought a Carvin DC-150 which was also inexpensive but much more versatile than the stratocaster, so the strat got retired around the mid-eighties ...

cheers,
randyc

[gpmedium]

Randy,

That method certainly sounds reasonable. Even still, I don't think it's a procedure that I would want to perform often.

I have relied on adjusting the pickup and/or string heights to get a close balance as possible.

BTW, that is certainly a nice looking Strat.

[randyc]

Thank you, it is a pretty guitar but it wasn't always It got beaten up good because it was one hard-working guitar (the only guitar I've ever re-fretted). Around 1982, when I bought the Carvin, my bass player acquired a cream-colored Fender Jazz Bass that I admired a great deal. I re-finished the old sunburst strat to match his bass ... kept spraying coats of clear poly over the cream finish until I got the lemon/antique tint that the bass had. Lots of fine sanding between coats and hand rubbing, first with rubbing compound and then with toothpaste on the final coat

Over the years, it's acquired its own "patina" and is now the prettiest solid-body I've ever owned, just a nice example of form following function.

[SamBooka]

The pic isnt clear.. are those white speed knobs?
Looks like a sweet guitar.

[randyc]

The pic isnt clear.. are those white speed knobs?
Looks like a sweet guitar.

Drew, I wouldn't know a speed knob from any other type, this being the only Fender guitar I've ever owned. Except for the color, it's the way it came off the wall in the music store (around 1978, to the best of my memory).

Here's a close-up of the knobs. Incidentally, the magnets on the pickups are clearly visible here, do they look very different from the normal Strat magnet heights?

[SamBooka]

Speed knobs (i believe) are a gibson term (those are gibson style knobs).
The 2nd string looks recessed .. other than that I cant really tell that you had changed the height. Fender changed from flat to staggered to short B poles so often over the first 30 years I cant keep track.. by the early 80s add the reissues to the mix and all bets are off.

I know I have the info in a the Duchosoir Strat book but that is in a pile while I am doing renovations..

[RAQ]

As a sort of 'aside' - I'm sure I remember an interview with Ted Greene in which he says he originally changed to a humbucker neck pup in his Tele, not because he was dissatisfied with the tone, but in order to adjust the output of the third string.

[cosmic gumbo]

That's the first strat I ever saw with speed knobs, plus they're clear, not a common color. It looks really cool.

I had a friend who had the radius of his old strat neck made flatter, and the luthier carefully lowered the D and G polepieces to match the flatter radius.

[Baltar Hornbeek]

I'd like to add it as an appendix to the vacuum tube amplifier book. (Which, by the way, has already been substantially updated. A new chapter has been added, detailing a design, from start to finish, using only the five spreadsheets briefly described previously.)

Thanks,
randyc

Cool! What ya gonna call it? > Rube Goleberg's Guide To Guitar Tube Amps and Equalization? Just kidding keep up the good work

[randyc]

Those knobs were on the guitar when I bought it, never gave them a thought. They are functional, what's left for a knob to do? Why are they called "speed knobs"? (Sorry, everyone but me must know this - they actually look sort of clunky and not particularly speedy to me now that I look more critically - would look better if they were slightly smaller, IMO.)

cosmic gumbo: so I'm not the only idiot that's done this pole adjustment, LOL !

cheers,
randyc

[Peter C]

I would imagine they're called speed knobs because they were a darn sight quicker to adjust (with just one finger) than the old chicken head knobs back in the day. They look rather cumbersome on the Strat. Nice colour, though. And it's a hard tail.

Interesting, if somewhat hair-raising, thread. I need to adjust the 3rd string pole pieces in my 80s Japanese Strat for a wound third....

[SamBooka]

Ok.. can I just say this:
I get first dibs on all the dead strat pickups that go up for sale after this mod

[Mike J.]

Here's my 2 cents:
Don't touch the pole pieces on that guitar. It's so easy to destroy the pick up with that "stupid" mod. Really, a 73 Strat is currently pretty good value in the market and the early 70s Strats are increasing their value by approx. 14-22% per year. As long as this instrument is original, leave it original. There will come the day, where you wanna play it again the way it was, there might come the day where you sell it for a good price (maybe in 10-12 years). Even exchanging the original pus is a no go! You won't do this on a 36 year old guitar.

[SamBooka]

I think Randy said it was a refin and refret so changing out the PUS isnt a no go. I just dont want to see an old pickup die.

[randyc]

Well, "stupid" seems a fairly harsh word to apply to someone whose success rate with guitar and amplifier modifications over some fifty years of design, modification and plain tinkering is 100%. (Not a single uncorrectable error so far, knock on wood.)

18 magnets were adjusted without failure which is a fair indication that the pickup windings may be a bit more robust than one might imagine (in my guitar, at least). In any event, had I managed to break a wire, it's NOT rocket scence to unsolder, unwind, repair and rewind - about twenty minutes work.)

Concerning re-sale value, as I said earlier, I refinished the guitar - resale value has already been diminished. I'm untroubled by that, and I obviously wasn't when I refinished the instrument (I haven't sold a single guitar in 35 years, although I've given away six or seven). In fact, this guitar would have been given away by now (to my brother, who also has my '59 LP Junior) had I not been so pleased with the way the color came out

cheers,
randyc

[SamBooka]

sorry randy... it is 20 min of work to rewind the pickup if you have a pickup winder and a good chunk of experience. You will be breaking the lead inside the pickup (the first wrap .. if you break the last wrap THAT is 20 min to fix)

Even refined and refretted it is probably a good guitar to hang on to Around here that guitar would go for 1500-2000 depending on the sucker.

[randyc]

Pickup winder = drill press, lathe, milling machine or just about anything that will run slowly and controllably while the 40 gauge is being fed onto the bobbin. (One of the most common uses for these little Chinese hobby lathes is to use them as specialized coil winders, a metal lathe is real easy to configure for that purpose.) Lollar uses everything from hand-drills to wooden contraptions that look like they came out of the Renaissance.

One of the techs that I used to work with used an electric eraser - way too fast for me but he'd been doing it for a while and he did fine work. It's not a job for everyone, but it's not that big of a deal either. Ditto with any part of working on an instrument that "may" be costly. (And it's easier to re-wind an existing pickup than a new one because no turns need to be counted, you just wind until all of the old wire is back on the bobbin.)