if short legged pickups fit all guitars, why do we need a long legged option?

[darkandrew]

A question that's been puzzling me ... if short legged pickups will fit in any guitar, why do we need a long legged option?

[FELINEGUITARS]

You need them especially on guitars like SGs and Flying Vs where you need a range of height adjustment between bridge and neck options when the pickups are pickguard mounted

[darkandrew]

But surely with a short leg you would get more adjustment opportunity as the pickup would be able to go even lower before the legs bottom out on the cavity?

[FELINEGUITARS]

it's actually better with the long leg as you can have the top of the pickup level with the pickguard and enough space between pickguard and long leg to fit the spring in . With a shorter leg it would often not have enough room for the long spring

Look at the bridge pickup and it has to be able to raise up as tall as the height of a tunamatic bridge =17mm tall
the long leg makes it easy whilst the short leg would run out of range.
Not such an issue if you use mounting rings however , although you often have to cut springs in half to make them fit ok.

Trust me on this - I face these challenges most days when building guitars

[darkandrew]

Thanks for your input on this, my experience has always been with mounting rings of various sorts. My thoughts were "why can't you just tighten the screw" and so compress the spring or maybe use shorter springs but from your experience would this have a negative effect on the how pickup is suspended and therefore its sound?

[FELINEGUITARS]

Not always compromising the sound - more that it won't get close enough for maximum sensitivity in some guitars or that it sits a bit funny when the spring is over compressed.

[Dave Sloven]

I was going to say 'buy an SG and you'll find out' but it seems that's already been said!

On an SG though I think it would be good to have an option with a calibrated set to have a short leg for the neck (to allow the pickup to be moved to other guitars later if necessary) and long leg for the bridge only.  You really need long legs for the bridge

[darkandrew]

Cheers guys, that's what I love about this forum; you can ask a straight forward question and get a straight forward answer. There are so many other forums where all people want to do is slag each other off.  :D