With some radius gauges, I made a hand-drawn diagram...
[Imgur](
https://i.imgur.com/vCfWNVP.jpg)
Black: 7.25”
Green: 9.5”
Red: 12”
Black: 16”
Towards the edges of the fingerboard:
There is some difference between the 7.25 and 9.5 radii.
Less difference between 9.5” and 12”
Even less difference between 12 and 16”
7.25” compared with 9.5”
The 1st and 6th strings are 1mm lower
Same difference between 9.5mm and 16mm
No significant difference between 12 and 16mm radii
This minimises the effect of fingerboard radius on polepiece stagger - particularly if one is placing Strat pickups far away from the strings (say 5mm away)
It would therefore appear that the louder unwound (plain) modern 3rd string is more relevant (than fingerboard radii) to polepiece stagger and relative string volumes...
What do you think...?
Comments
FWIIW, the polepiece length radius pattern employed on Seymour Duncan Stack pickups for Stratocaster goes perfectly with old MIJ Charvel Model series shred sticks. IMO, they should offer it on their single coil pickups.
The set of pickups I already have just so happens to be staggered with a significantly elevated 4th pole and a mildly elevated 3rd. Ideally, I would want to drop the 3rd pole very slightly - apparently that’s safer than the first and sixth poles, but I’m not going to risk damaging the pickup.
In fact, with a plain G you actively *don't* want a stagger, with the G highest. The G is always clangy on a vintage Strat because of this.
But I would listen for any problems before assuming they need adjusting, anyway - especially with any kind of overdriven sound it's unlikely to be noticeable.
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I don't worry about the lack of stagger because it sounds great as it is.
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It's musically arbitrary though - different chord shapes will place different notes on that string. So it's not like that stagger will make all chords more thirdy or more octavey or whatever, it'll almost randomly emphasise different parts of the chords you play depending on the shape you use.
For single note playing I hate the stagger. My Strat came with staggered pole pieces (at first I actually thought they looked so cool compared to the flat ones I had seen before, maybe this is the real appeal?) and I'd be playing just at the point where the amp stays clean on other strings then as soon as I go up to the G string it's distorted instead of clean. That's surely never desirable to have that much difference between strings.
You could maybe learn to use that and only ever go up to the G when actively wanting it to be more distorted. But I don't think many people already play like that, I'd much rather be able to go up and down the strings to reach notes without worrying about it changing so drastically in sound.
By the time I had done that I looked back on the forum and there were a few replies saying that pickups where the wire is wound directly on to the poles - which includes mine - it's very dangerous to do it and it can ruin them. But it was too late and, thank God, I didn't do any damage so now I am much happier with flat pole pieces.
Just to note: I was either going to flatten them or buy brand new ones with flat pole pieces; keeping the stagger wasn't an option. So the gamble was really risking having to get new ones and not being able to sell the old ones if they broke vs. not having to buy new ones at all. So I had quite a lot to win and not too much to lose. But if keeping yours as they are is an option for you then the risk is a lot higher for you so you might not want to touch them.