Can I Put a Gibson Pickup in my Fender Guitar? How About a Fender in my Gibson?

For years players have customized their guitars by adding different types of pickups to get that all-in-one sound. Albert Collins and Keith Richards put humbuckers in the neck position of their Telecasters and Alvin Lee from "Ten Years After" put a Stratocaster pickup in between the two humbuckers on his Gibson ES-335. Years ago Eddie VanHalen put a slanted humbucker in the bridge position of his customized Kramer guitar. Today many builders are using a combination of Fender and Gibson style pickups in the same instrument for a variety of tonal variations.

When using a Gibson style humbucker in a Fender type instrument, remember the string and pole spacing will be different. The average pole spacing for a Gibson type humbucker is 1.935" and a Strat is 2.075". The humbucker is about .14" narrower than the Strat and makes the E-1st and E-6th string slightly extend beyond the outside poles. This could have an effect on the output of the two strings.

WRITTEN ON JUNE 12, 2015, BY sltwtr

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