How important is the position of the pickup under the strings?
I’ve heard great sounding guitars with pickups here, there and everywhere. One of my favorite players Eddie Van Halen had his humbucker slated in his custom built Kramer guitar. You can see in old photo’s that the high E and low E strings didn’t exactly line up over each pole. Many players during the late ‘70’s and throughout the ‘80’s put Gibson spaced humbuckers under their Fender spaced strings. Even though the strings don’t exactly line up with the pole pieces, there’s usually enough stray magnetic field for the string to disturb. As the string vibrates it moves the magnetic field through the coil and generates alternating current that is amplified many times in the amplifier.
