TV Jones Magnatron Pole Piece Adjustment

  • Thread starter nervous
  • Start date
  • This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links like Ebay, Amazon, and others.

nervous

Tele-Meister
Joined
Jul 1, 2016
Posts
114
Age
63
Location
Beautiful Central NY
Before I go mucking about and breaking things, does anyone know how the pole pieces in a TV Jones Magna'tron pickup are adjusted, if they are at all? No screws so I am assuming one would simply push them down if that's the direction one wanted to go. I may not need to but knowing will be helpful if I do.
 

coonhollow greg

Tele-Meister
Joined
Jul 19, 2014
Posts
209
Location
roseburg,oregon
Before I go mucking about and breaking things, does anyone know how the pole pieces in a TV Jones Magna'tron pickup are adjusted, if they are at all? No screws so I am assuming one would simply push them down if that's the direction one wanted to go. I may not need to but knowing will be helpful if I do.
I I would call them up and ask. They are really good people to deal with and you will get the 100% correct answer.
 

BorderRadio

Doctor of Teleocity
Joined
Apr 2, 2014
Posts
12,422
Age
45
Location
Phoenix, AZ
Always wanted a set, haven’t committed yet, but I’m pretty sure you don’t adjust them at all, it’s not a Dynasonic, though it’s supposed to sound like one. If TVJ says otherwise let us know, maybe it’s time to “pickup” a set.
 

nervous

Tele-Meister
Joined
Jul 1, 2016
Posts
114
Age
63
Location
Beautiful Central NY
Always wanted a set, haven’t committed yet, but I’m pretty sure you don’t adjust them at all, it’s not a Dynasonic, though it’s supposed to sound like one. If TVJ says otherwise let us know, maybe it’s time to “pickup” a set.
I have written to them so I sure will report back as soon as I have a definitive answer. It's not a big deal. I just have some tight clearances in a project I just finished and the D string pole pieces are standing pretty tall relative to everything else. I'll most likely leave them alone as they're not bothering anything. Just more curious than anything I guess...
 

BorderRadio

Doctor of Teleocity
Joined
Apr 2, 2014
Posts
12,422
Age
45
Location
Phoenix, AZ
I have written to them so I sure will report back as soon as I have a definitive answer. It's not a big deal. I just have some tight clearances in a project I just finished and the D string pole pieces are standing pretty tall relative to everything else. I'll most likely leave them alone as they're not bothering anything. Just more curious than anything I guess...

From my experiments with Dyna types, the pole piece heights definitely matter. TVJ has fixed my problems in the past, and does do some custom work. It’d be worth asking him to make you a Magnatron with custom slug heights, if you know exactly what you want.
 

nervous

Tele-Meister
Joined
Jul 1, 2016
Posts
114
Age
63
Location
Beautiful Central NY
Per the fine folks at TV Jones themselves, as suspected, the pole pieces on the Magnatron pickup are not adjustable. I do not expect this to be an issue but now I know. Thanks all.
 

Barncaster

Doctor of Teleocity
Joined
Feb 3, 2010
Posts
10,980
Location
Northern California
Hey Nerv,
Much like a Fender single coil, you are left with just full pickup chassis twerking. No pole height adjustability here.

These pickups have a staggered magnet array with the D and G appearing taller than the balance of the magnets and the B a bit shorter. This works well with small radius necks like Fender’s original 7.25” as the neck’s radius reasonably matches the magnet face radius allowing the string to magnet distances to be reasonably similar and therefore the string to string volume more consistent. With larger radiused necks at 9” and above, flat magnet arrays tend to work better. So if the D & G are offensive and you have a larger-radiused neck, swap in a 7.25” if available and it will probably sound better.
Long story long, sorry.
Rob
 

nervous

Tele-Meister
Joined
Jul 1, 2016
Posts
114
Age
63
Location
Beautiful Central NY
It's all good. My only issue now is that the guitar i put them in doesn't have a lot of space between the body top and the strings. Flat humbuckers would have been a better choice but I like the look of the Filtertron style in this one. I am finding that the middle pickup does limit the picking space and I find myself running into the top of that middle pickup pretty often.

Midtown Lrg (2).jpg


Midtown Lrg (4).jpg


Midtown Lrg (15).jpg


Midtown Lrg (10).jpg
 

BorderRadio

Doctor of Teleocity
Joined
Apr 2, 2014
Posts
12,422
Age
45
Location
Phoenix, AZ
It's all good. My only issue now is that the guitar i put them in doesn't have a lot of space between the body top and the strings. Flat humbuckers would have been a better choice but I like the look of the Filtertron style in this one. I am finding that the middle pickup does limit the picking space and I find myself running into the top of that middle pickup pretty often.

View attachment 483992

View attachment 484001

View attachment 483994

View attachment 483995

Looks great and I bet it sounds all kinds of ways Gretsch. Welcome to the world of filtertron string clicks unfortunately, price of doing business...
 

Zepfan

Doctor of Teleocity
Joined
Nov 30, 2013
Posts
13,813
Location
Horn Lake, MS
It's all good. My only issue now is that the guitar i put them in doesn't have a lot of space between the body top and the strings. Flat humbuckers would have been a better choice but I like the look of the Filtertron style in this one. I am finding that the middle pickup does limit the picking space and I find myself running into the top of that middle pickup pretty often.

View attachment 483992

View attachment 484001

View attachment 483994

View attachment 483995
Love this guitar. You'll just have to move over a bit between the pickups I guess.
 

nervous

Tele-Meister
Joined
Jul 1, 2016
Posts
114
Age
63
Location
Beautiful Central NY
Love this guitar. You'll just have to move over a bit between the pickups I guess.
Thank you. That's exactly what I was doing last night. A minor adjustment one way or the other. This is one of the best playing guitars from a set-up and action standpoint that I have ever owned. Just right from the factory which is so rare. I could actually stand to raise things a bit which will only help this situation.
 
Top