Will Soapbar sized HBs sound different?

[Kiichi]

Hi,
I was just thinking about the new Soapbar HB covers and had this though: We have had discussion about whether a neck PU on a 24 fret guitar will sound different than on a 22 fret guitar due to the slightly different position and therefor the PU "seeing" another part of the string.
Since this sounds logical to me I thought that on a soupbar cover the polepieces are closer together the magnetic field and the "view" of the PU changes.


Now I don't expect a big change at all, but won't there be a small difference?
What do you think?

Cheers
Kiichi

[timmy_b]

The pole pieces are the same spacing as all of our 7 string pickups, it is just the cover that is wider to fit a guitar originally routed for an active soapbar. However, there will be a tiny difference in the sound, due to the baseplate and covers being different shape and size to our regular 7 string PU.

You are absolutely correct on the 22 / 24 fret subject, the position in the scale of a pickup most certainly affects the tone

[Kiichi]

Thanks for the reply, it was certainly helpful. Great to see more BKP faces around here recently, I really like it.

I did however mess up what I meant about the pole pieces. I did not really mean the spacing in the regular sense (as in 50mm or 53mm spacing), but rather how close the two rows of pole pieces are to each other. I have no experience with soapbar sized HBs, but I would think that they would be closer together and therefore effect the tone.

Also, do you have an idea in which way they sound different? I really am a sucker for knowing these details. Not that it will matter for anyone in a real live situation, but I am just curious about these things.

[timmy_b]

Ah, I see! Just to clarify, the new covers are sized to replace a soapbar style active humbucker such as a 707 or a blackout, not a soapbar p90, it has our standard sized 7 string humbucker coils inside, so all of the pole spacings are the same as normal.