Video by Trey via YouTube
Source
There’s no shortage of things to consider when shopping for pickups—active vs. passive, high-output vs. low-output, alnico vs. ceramic, and, as you might have gathered from the title of this post, staggered pole pieces vs. flat pole pieces.
Pole pieces are the round bits of metal in a guitar pickup that align with the strings. Some single coil pickups have pole pieces that are flush with each other (flat pole pieces) white others have pole pieces that vary in height (staggered pole pieces).
If you’re the curious type—and you’re here, so you must be—you may have even wondered if choosing between flat and staggered pole pieces is more like choosing magnets and wind—which highly affect your tone—or choosing a cover color.
The truth is somewhat in the middle, and we’re here to help you uncover it. Keep reading to learn about the importance of pole pieces in single coil pickups (with a focus on Stratocasters), why pole piece height matters, the evolution of flat and staggered pole pieces, and more.
What are Pole Pieces for in Pickups?
Before we explain staggered pole pieces vs. flat pole pieces, we need to explain what pole pieces are for in a pickup. Thankfully, our own Seymour W. Duncan answered this question a while ago in our “Ask the Master” series.
“[Pole pieces] are used to direct the magnetic field from its magnetic path within the pickup towards the strings.”
In single coil pickups, like those for a Stratocaster, the pole pieces themselves are rod magnets (most often alnico, but sometimes ceramic). Humbuckers, generally speaking, use steel pole pieces (adjustable screws and unadjustable slugs) to conduct the magnetic field from a bar magnet inside the pickup.
Staggered Pole Pieces
In 1951, Fender released the Telecaster. The original Telecaster, though it was undeniably innovative, borrowed some form and function from lap steel guitars. Among those elements was the pickup, and lap steel pickups used flat pole pieces.
When the Stratocaster was first released in 1954, it departed from the tradition established by the Telecaster, featuring new staggered pole pieces instead. In the 1960s, the Telecaster would follow suit and move to staggered pole pieces for its bridge pickup.
Why Are Some Pickup Pole Pieces Staggered?
Why change from flat pole pieces to staggered pole pieces? While we’ve never heard a complaint about the tone of these early Telecasters stemming from the pickups, staggered pole pieces were created to solve an issue with string balance.
Fretboard Radius
All guitars—and all fretted instruments, for that matter—have what’s called a fretboard radius, which is the curvature of the fretboard.
Vintage Telecasters and Stratocasters had fretboard radiuses that were quite round, even compared to modern guitar standards.While most modern Fenders ship with a 9.5” fretboard radius, the first Stratocasters had a much rounder 7.25” radius. As a result, the strings in vintage guitars had more variance in their distance from the pickups.
If you look at a vintage staggered pickup, you’ll see that the pole pieces loosely follow an arch—the two lowest strings and two highest strings sit lower in the bobbin, while the two middle strings are raised. By following the shape of the fretboard, the strings are closer to equidistant from each respective pole piece.
The Wound G String
But wait a minute — if you take a look at a Stratocaster pickup with a vintage stagger, you’ll see that the pole piece under the G string is significantly higher than the D, despite those strings being in a similar spot on the fretboard curve. Shouldn’t they be the same height?
Not quite. That’s because, as some of you may know, vintage guitar string sets were an overall heavier gauge that included a wound G string.
This matters because the magnetic pole pieces interact with the core of a wound guitar string—not the winding. Wound guitar strings have a solid magnetic core and are wrapped in nickel, which is not magnetic. So, even though the core for the lower strings is generally thicker, the core of the wound G string is thin—depending on the set, it could be thinner than the B string.
So while the G string is nearly the same distance from the pickups as the D string, the part of it that interacts with the pole piece is farther away. To compensate, the pole piece under the G string was raised to be even higher than the D.
Vintage vs. Modern Stagger
Over time, what’s considered “standard” for guitar has evolved. The Fender Stratocaster now ships with a 9.5” radius and nearly every popular electric guitar string set features an unwound G string. As a result, the dramatic stagger of vintage pickups has been mellowed considerably.
You can still easily find pickups with staggered pole pieces, especially for Stratocasters — they’re just less staggered than vintage ones. Of course, there are also plenty of builders winding vintage-correct pickups with the vintage stagger, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find those pickups in new production line instruments.
Potential Drawbacks of Staggered Pole Pieces
Staggered pole pieces exist to solve specific problems for specific kinds of guitars, strings, and playing styles. Under the right conditions, they provide a well-balanced sound and feel.
However, not every guitar benefits from staggered pole pieces. Though 9.5” is the Fender standard, many guitars have even flatter radiuses—12”, 16”, and up. A flatter radius negates the need for staggered pole pieces. Having a vintage stagger in a guitar with a flat fretboard radius can throw the sound off balance, where the G and D are louder than the other strings.
Modern Guitars Using Staggered Pole Pieces
Guitar purists like to keep vintage instruments “stock,” and they want “vintage inspired” guitars to keep as many of the original specifications as possible. That’s completely understandable! To meet that demand, there is no shortage of vintage or vintage-inspired Telecasters, Stratocasters, and other single-coil guitars that boast pickups with a vintage stagger—we can’t say the same for wound G strings, leading to the aforementioned issue with unbalanced strings.
To address this issue, it’s even more common to see modern Stratocasters equipped with pickups that meet in the middle with a reduced modern stagger. Though Fender Stratocaster pickups were nearly exclusively loaded with flat pole pieces from 1974 through the early 1980s, these days you’ll find brand new Stratocasters with either flat or staggered pole pieces depending on the model.
Flat Pole Pieces
With the rise of flatter fretboards, it’s easy to assume that flat pole pieces are a more modern invention. But, as we mentioned before, flat pole pieces predate staggered pole pieces in single coil pickups.
Why Flat Pole Pieces Were Developed
As mentioned earlier, the first Telecasters borrowed their pickups from lap steel guitars. Lap steel guitars have flat pole pieces, which is in line with the fact that lap steel guitars don’t have a fretboard radius—their necks are flat as a pancake, so flat pole pieces provide perfectly balanced string output. So, if flat pole pieces are older, why have they become so much more popular over time? As guitar specs began to modernize, the need for staggered pole pieces diminished.
Modernization of Guitar Specs and Style
Guitarists started ditching the wound G string as early as the 1950s. Rock’n’Roll players like James Burton made their own guitar string sets by throwing out the low E string, shifting all the other strings down a tuning peg, and replacing the original high E with a banjo string.
Part of the reason for this change was string bending. When the Stratocaster was released in 1954, string bending hadn’t reached mainstream popularity. Starting with B.B. King, electric blues guitarists became known for the technique. However, rock musicians didn’t fully adopt it until the 1960s. Then, throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, the trend of using an unwound G string became even more commonplace as rock took hold of the airwaves and guitarists looked for easier strings to bend. We can’t imagine it’s a coincidence that string bending became more prevalent as moving to an unwound G string grew in popularity!
Our own Seymour W. Duncan brought up a great point in one of his Ask the Master Q&A responses. “I like using flat poles when bending strings into another string’s magnetic field,” he wrote when discussing staggered and flat pole pieces. “I can hear volume changes between strings when using pickups with staggered poles.”
We already discussed that the B string’s core is closer to the pickups than the core of a wound G string, leading to a higher G pole piece to compensate for the distance. So when you bend the B into the magnetic pull of the raised G pole piece, you get an unwanted increase in volume. Flat pole pieces solve this problem by normalizing the relative magnetic pull from each pole piece.
Ease of Manufacturing
By the time Fender moved to a 9.5” radius in the 1980s, flat pole pieces were already the default for Stratocaster pickups. That makes it difficult to credit the flattening of the Fender radius with the flattening of the pole pieces—Fender switched to flat pole pieces around 1974 and started reincorporating a modern stagger in the 1980s.
One thing to consider is that flat pole pieces streamline the pickup production process. Cutting pole piece magnets to different lengths is more arduous than cutting flat pole pieces. And, according to our own Seymour W. Duncan, “it’s easier to manufacture and takes less time to assemble a bobbin when using [flat pole pieces].”
Advantages of Using Flat Pole Pieces
Changes to the guitar strings and fretboards turned the advantages of staggered pole pieces into disadvantages. What once improved string-to-string balance could now cause a slight overpowering of the mids, volume changes during string bends, and a general feel that some players don’t favor.
Flat pole pieces offer better sound balance for modern guitars. As you may have heard from our customer support team, most players today will experience better string-to-string balance by using pickups with flat pole stagger.
Choosing Between Staggered and Flat Pole Pieces
When choosing between staggered and flat pole pieces, there are three questions you should ask yourself:
- Is my fretboard rounder, or flatter?
If you’re rocking a 7.25” radius, you might want to consider staggered pole pieces. - Do I use a wound G string?
If you’re using a set of strings with a plain G, you probably don’t need staggered pole pieces. If you are rocking a wound G, you may benefit from staggered pole pieces. - Do I tend to bend strings?
As mentioned above, some players find that staggered pole pieces aren’t ideal for bending strings because of perceived volume changes. If you don’t bend strings, this isn’t something you need to consider.
To wrap things up, if you have a 7.25” radius, a wound G string, and aren’t a big fan of string bending, you’ll probably lean towards pickups with staggered pole pieces.
It’s All About Personal Preference
There is one big exception to this rule—your individual preference.
Ultimately, you may prefer the sound of one pickup style over the other. If you have a Telecaster with a round fretboard radius and slapped on some Elixer 12-52s with a wound G, you might still prefer pickups with flat pole pieces. After all, the earliest Telecasters had flat pole pieces, and their tone is lauded in the guitar community.
You also might find some inspiration from one of music’s most famous guitars—Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Number One” Stratocaster. By all accounts, Vaughan’s eponymous guitar is a vintage Stratocaster that would have shipped with a 7.25” radius. However, over the years, the radius was flattened to 9-10”, allegedly caused by several refrets. However, the pickups still kept the vintage stagger.
These days, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone recommending a dramatic vintage stagger on such a flat radius, but it’s hard to imagine anyone fussing about how SRV’s tone could’ve improved with flatter pole pieces. For what it’s worth, Fender’s own recreation of “Number One” boasts a 12” radius and is loaded with pickups that feature a modern stagger.
Player preference is why we don’t only offer pickups with flat pole pieces. Some of our pickups are even available with flat and staggered versions. For example, our high-output Quarter Pound Strat set can be purchased with flat pole pieces (which is what we usually recommend). However, you can alternatively pick up the Quarter Pound Staggered Strat set, which delivers an edgier tone with a gritty midrange. It’s all about what you’re looking for in your guitar’s tone and feel.
If you’re still not sure whether you’d prefer pickups with staggered pole pieces or flat pole pieces, we’ve got you covered. Our 21-day exchange program lets you try out our pickups in your guitar for three weeks. If you decide they’re not the right fit, send them back and exchange them for something else, no strings attached.
The post Staggered Pole Pieces vs. Flat Pole Pieces for Stratocasters® appeared first on Guitar Pickups, Bass Pickups, Pedals.