F spacing and Trembuckers?

Have you ever bought Dimarzio or Seymour Duncan pickups and you realized that there is 2 versions of the same pickups. One known as F-Spacing or Trembucker while the other known as standard spacing? Do they make a difference? Yes and No.

What the spacing itself means is that there are usually 2 kinds of bridge spacing, measuring 2.01" (51 mm) center-to-center from the first polepiece to the sixth for F space or Trembucker pickups and 1.90" (48 mm) for standard spacing pickups.

So which one should you get? If your guitar has a tremolo equipped, Floyd Rose or fender Vintage Tremolo, you should get the F Space or Trembucker. If your guitar is equipped without a tremolo or made in Asia or Mexico, you should get the standard spacing pickup.

What happens if you get the Standard spacing pickups for a tremolo equipped guitar or vice versa? Well, there will still be sound from your guitar (that's the yes) but not that the strings that are slightly not aligned to the pole pieces might sound slightly softer.

Why are there 2 different spacings? Before SuperStrats were invented, the only guitars that had humbuckers are Gibson lespaul kind of guitar. When people started putting humbuckers into strats, pickup makers decided to cater to the market for tremolo spaced guitars. Hence F space, for Fender or Floyd Rose (Dimarzio) or Trembucker (Seymour Duncan)

The next time, before you buy pickups to swap out the ones in your guitar, do take note that there are actually 2 different spacings.