Curing Stratitis By Moving Polepieces

In plastic bobbin pickups like that you can move the polepieces without fear, they are press fit in and do not touch the coil wires. You can use a small C clamp and a piece of hard wood with a hole in the opposite side to adjust polepieces with more control. No heat needed. If you have fiber base pickups, it is a little more risk cause the poles hold the bobbin walls and are part of the structure of the pickup.

Thank you for this, this is an issue with my guitar, I thought I would need new pickups as the polepieces don't appear to want to move, I can see why now. Funny how it always seems so obvious when you're shown how it's done. I really appreciate your videos, thanks again.

Great video. I just did this with some Seymour Duncan SSL-1s that I've been fighting with for 7 years. I'm glad I did. I can still have a stagger, but not nearly as pronounced. I only pushed the D & G pole pieces down. The middle position pickup worked perfectly. In the bass position pickup, I went just slightly too far, where these pole pieces match the height of the A string pole piece. I can hear the difference in comparison to the D & G pole piece adjusted middle pickup, but barely. This adjustment is the best thing that's happened to these pickups. The sound of the SSL-1 is, to me, the way a strat is supposed to sound, and getting the D & G pole pieces down enough for a modern radius neck has made these pickups sound incredible. It is truly a revelation and made these pickups usable, because the stratitis was driving me crazy before this. Thank you for this video!

I salute you sir. This video just made my day. I’m always wanting to do stuff like this, & usually just go for it. I respect the people who have the guts to tweak stuff.

Hi! About moving polepieces - I'd like to point out, that the pickup in your demo is from the 80s with plastic bobbins. (Square holes on the bottom).The wire does not touch the polepieces on those pickups, so you can take out all 6 and even reposition if you like. (Be sure to have the polarity right).No demages to the coilwire. All other Fenders with a top and a bottom plate - have the wire directley on to the polepieces, and therefore this is pretty risky. The wire rest on both outer polepieces, so they can not be moved at all. The G & D in the middle of the pickup have the lowest wire pressure, and they can be carefully moved, but not repeatedly up and down. That would be like filing through the wire insulation. Move carefully only once. H & A poles are more risky, so leave them be. The most important problem is with the G&D - I have done this many times with both center pieces, and never had a problem, but it is possible to cut through and destroy the pickup. I never heated the polepieces, 'cause that may melt the insulation on the wire. So, if heating - do not warm too much. Henry Eugen

Thanks! I was always afraid to move the pole pieces. It worked for me and I can hear all my strings equally now. I'm using Texas Specials and have a modern neck with a flatter radius. Finally!!

Did this over the weekend to my American Strat with staggered pickups. Only adjusted D, G and B poles and the result with each pickup was amazing. I knew I was risking ruining each pickup but I hated that staggered sound so much. Great video, thank you so much! I’ve got my dream Strat now.

Another reason that the pole pieces were staggered is because guitar strings of yesterday were wound with pure nickle wraps which had very little magnetic properties as compared to today's nickle plated steel wraps. Flatwound strings were even weaker.

Thankyou brother, Your a legend, no more stratitis. Stef U.K. 🎸🕉

Thanks for posting man, this worked perfectly on my AVRI strat that had a real bad string volume balance. Now it shines!

Did this with 57/62 pickups. The bobbin is not plastic, so i was a little nervous. worked great! Finally sounds even!! I didnt use a soldering iron. I used a small flat head screwdriver and a LIGHT hammer. Lightly Tapped the poles downward till they broke loose. Then adjusted to where i wanted them. I did not touch the high or low e just incase the wires wrapped around them. Thank you!

You are one lucky guy. A buddy of mine tried doing this to his Strat single coils in the bridge and neck position. Worked on the neck pickup, shorted out his bridge. He didn’t really care though because he wanted a different bridge pickup anyway.

Been thinking about doing this for a while. Saw it done on another video. After watching this, I thought I'm going to try pressing down the G pole piece on my Strats Tex Mex pickups, while still on the guitar ... and it worked. I just used a screw driver and pressed firmly with controlled pressure, and they moved no problem. It makes a quite a noticeable and preferable difference to the sound of the guitar. Before the G was too prominent but now it sounds much more balanced with the other strings. Thanks for giving me the confidence to try it. :)

Thanks a million, your explanation is to something that I stumbled across back in the mid 80's. After retro fitting staggered pickups to a MiJ Strat I got the natural urge to push the poles into a flatter profile. I've been doing it ever since because I always thought they sounded better, however, I learned a long time ago that I also have a strong preference towards 12"R oil and wax finished necks and now I know why I like to push the staggered Alnico poles flat.

Thanks for this tip. Now I actually understand pickup/string height relationship!

Thanks for the information! ... a few of my Strats do that kind of "Warble" ... I always wondered what caused it

Understand that this is an old thread, but I would comment that the reason the poles are staggered has more to do with the magnetic properties of the string cores than anything to do with neck radius. Obviously, bridge/saddle radius should reflect neck radius, but even then you adjust for string clearance and playing feel, not just the radius. Magnetically, with a wound string, the core will be smaller in a smaller gauge string, thus the pole piece needs to be closer to maintain a similar voltage amplitude as the string moves through the field. With a wound G, the pole piece is right up there close. Then you come to that big plain B and the smaller E and the pole pieces are adjusted to some early engineer's calculation regarding voltage amplitude needed. I believe that the original pickups were optimized for particular string sets made of nickel steel. Lots of different stuff available today of different materials, gauges, and physical characteristics. Bottom line, you can't set up a guitar with a ruler, and it really helps if you are a competent player. I have fought with this issue a lot over the years, even grinding pole pieces down (not a good idea) to balance out string response on my Strats. This is useful information, an appropriate technique, and no, you won't affect the Gauss strength of your magnets with the heat available from a soldering iron. My response is not intended to address "Strat warble" which is a very real issue and caused by the height of pole pieces as described in the video. Keep on pick'n!

Thanks for your video and caution approach. I just went for it on my very expensive limited edition 65 reissue Strat by using my thumb tip on top pushing carefully down on them without solder iron or breaking anything and I made some good progress to where I for sure have it sounding much better! Now I would like to get that high E and B string raised a little from the other side, but at least I can sleep tonight knowing it sounds much more even tone and better too me!

Always had g string issue... even my high dollar guitars, Gibson and Fender. Thanks for the tip I will look at your tweaking ideas on neck screw qurter turns and this pickup idea. Keep up the good home remedies.

Thanks for the info. I moved one of the poles already but the others won't budge. Nice to know there's something I can do about the imbalance.