Are Six Pickup Poles Sufficient?

I read somewhere, that if your strings are too close to the pole pieces, or magnetic field is too strong, it can interfere with the vibration of the string, which some people call “tone suck” and a lowering of the pickup away from the strings helps. It’s all about finding the right spot where you get a good tone without “tone suck”
 
I read somewhere, that if your strings are too close to the pole pieces, or magnetic field is too strong, it can interfere with the vibration of the string, which some people call “tone suck” and a lowering of the pickup away from the strings helps. It’s all about finding the right spot where you get a good tone without “tone suck”
The first thing I tried to reduce the problem was lowering my pickup and pole pieces to minimize the ratio of the distance between the pole piece and the unbent vs bent string (inverse cube law and all that). It didn't really help enough. My pickups aren't that close to the strings to begin with.
 
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I think that another factor which you may not be taking into account is that when you're smearing a note, you'll be rubbing off some of its energy against the fretboard, which will make it vibrate less and probably result in less output.
 
Good grief. I thought I was preoccupied with this. I found an interesting read by someone who put some time into it:

https://alexkenis.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/guitar-pickup-theory-1-blade-vs-pole-pieces/

An excerpt: " ...a narrower pole piece produces a more focused flux field and improves coupling (which is true and calculable if you look into solenoid documents) as well as producing a higher change in flux differential (and this a higher voltage amplitude), but that is at the expense of off-axis sensitivity (i.e. signal drop-off when bending a string away from the center axis)".
 
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It is a valid argument. Vintage or New. Keep an open mind IMHO. In my humble experience, neck radius plays big, thus vibrato to ooze that last drop, to worry about that small of a difference f******ks with my groove...
 
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Interesting. I play clean-ish on the neck most of the time, high on the board as often as not, no compression. I've never been bothered by volume changes during bends, but have heard other players who it really bothers.
At the same time I am very sensitive to string to string balance, and spend a lot of time adjusting height and pole pieces on all my guitars. I find these screws as important as any other tone control. So I'm always a little surprised when I hear others who find this bending volume to be a significant problem. Actually, I'm not a big fan of blade pickups because I find them unbalanced, and unable to be remedied. Normally I use covered, low output PAF style.

I wonder if there are other variables that cause this to become more pronounced. Possible things that come to mind are fretboard radius, pickup height, average height of all pole pieces from one side of the pickup to the other, whether or not the pickup is covered or uncovered (I expect a biggie), whether the guitar has a trem or not, and string gauge.

Yea, I used to think it was because I couldn't bend well. Then I found a much better excuse - it's the f'n pole pieces!! ;-)

(I could still improve my bending - especially when bending into vibrato...)

Haha, if you've heard steadystate's clips you'll know that technique probably ain't the problem :)
 
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I find these screws as important as any other tone control. So I'm always a little surprised when I hear others who find this bending volume to be a significant problem.
I also find screw height vital for string balance. But to me, this goes hand-in-hand with volume drop when bending away from a pole piece. The distance of a string from a pole piece determines its output for a given string movement.

Actually, I'm not a big fan of blade pickups because I find them unbalanced, and unable to be remedied.
I've never used them, but I thought about that very thing last night. No way to compensate. 22-pole for me now.

Possible things that come to mind are fretboard radius, pickup height, average height of all pole pieces from one side of the pickup to the other, whether or not the pickup is covered or uncovered (I expect a biggie), whether the guitar has a trem or not, and string gauge.

I have a 20" radius, so it's pretty flat. Lowering the pickups helps for sure, as does lowering the pole pieces into the pickup. I find myself compromising string balance for more consistent bend volume because of this. I also use uncovered pickups (I'd love to see a study comparing them to uncovered in this regard), and a very light string gauge (not sure if that is good, bad, or irrelevant).

Haha, if you've heard steadystate's clips you'll know that technique probably ain't the problem :)
Thanks for the kind words; but it is a problem. Believe me. Perhaps the biggest first world problem in my life. Next would be having to brush my teeth with a manual toothbrush when my Sonicare isn't charged.
 
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