Why 2 Pickups?

[Peter Funk]

I've been playing my Fender Dual 6 for quite a while, but (REALLY!) just today I was wondering, why does it have two pickups per neck. I mean, you can't switch between them like you can on a Telecaster ...

[David Knutson]

Isn’t there a blend pot under the bridge cover on those?

[Noah Miller]

Is there no blend knob?

[Jeff Highland]

The two pickups together form a humbucking pair of coils for noise reduction.

[Ricky Davis]

Yes; under that bridge cover is a blend knob. And that knob blend tone balance between front "Neck" pickup and back "Bridge" pickup....so it's a tonal Change you get with those two single coil pickups....very important.
Ricky

[Joe A. Roberts]

It’s important to note that the original MK1 26” scale Stringmasters had a different set up than the blend wheel of the later models.
I believe it worked like this: tone up all the way was just the bridge pickup without the tone capacitor, in the middle the neck pick-up is introduced, and all the way down the tone cap is in.
I have never played one of these but have always been curious. I am sure they must have freaked out the Fender artists who were well used to their 22.5 scale trapezoid pickup models.
So, anyway, that was the original intention.

Why Fender changed the electronic setup and the metal pickup covers and such is a mystery to me.
Though, of course, the change to the splayed legs and getting rid of the lollipop tuners was an improvement.
Though those push buttons could be problematic, which is probably why they changed back to slider switches.
The choice of either 22 1/2 and 24 1/2 scale lengths on the MkII is cool too, but it would have been cool if they had a third option for the original 26”!

It’s interesting that the Telecaster kept that style the metal neck pickup cover even though the Stringmaster and all the pre-CBS Fender pickups thereafter used plastic.

Were there production steels that had two pickups on each neck before the Stringmaster?
I can’t think of any off-hand.
Though I know Magnatone was quick to jump on the longer scale, two pickup bandwagon after the Stringmaster came out.

[Peter Funk]

Aaaah! The blend knob!
I even used it before, but somehow didn't associate it with the existance of two pickups ...
Thanks a lot, folks!

[Nic Neufeld]

As noted above, MkI wiring was based off of the tone knob, and MkII isn't exactly a blend knob in the way we a lot of times might think about it (like when you see it on basses, a lot of time it is a true blend where the center detent is 50/50 each pickup, and each extreme is one pickup soloed). What the MkII wiring does is, when blend knob is "off", you get just the bridge pickup. As you turn the blend knob up it blends in more of the neck pickup...in series, not parallel, which is important. So unless you rewire it, you never hear just the neck pickup. So at zero you have bright single coil bridge pickup, at ten you have a warmer, louder twin coil series humbucker, basically, even though the coils are physically separated. I'd say it is a pretty neat design, but it wasn't much use to me since I always wanted a warmer fatter tone so I left it 100% on.

The Magnatone dual pickup wiring, now that I'd love to know more about. Mine seems a touch inscrutable (is there any switching or blending going on?)

[Rob DiStefano]

...
It’s interesting that the Telecaster kept that style the metal neck pickup cover even though the Stringmaster and all the pre-CBS Fender pickups thereafter used plastic.
...

Leo added the neck pickup during the middle of his first year of guitar business (1950) where his sole guitar was named "Spanish Electric Guitar", and when the neck pickup was added the name was changed to "Esquire" - yes, with one or TWO pickups. Later that year Leo changed the guitar name to "Broadcaster" but retained the "Esquire" name for single bridge pickup guitars. Don Randall coined the "Telecaster" name in the Spring of 1951 since Leo had to drop the "Broadcaster" name in January of that year due to a conflict with a Gretsch drumkit named "Broadkaster".

But back to that Fender neck pickup - it was added in order to produce low baritone-like tones. It was Leo's idea that his one guitar could occupy all positions in a band - steel guitar bridge pickup for leads and a quasi-baritone neck pickup for the low tones so the bands of his era wouldn't need to lug around a double bass. That neck pickup was never changed, not even when Leo invented the Tele bass in '51.

Having a ground shield metal cover helps to kill treble frequencies; that, along with a couple of capacitors to further shunt treble to ground.

Plastic covers don't afford shielding, so that treble isn't greatly affected. They will, however, impede the induced signal from the magnetized strings to the pickup coil. FWIW, the magnets in passive pickups have only one job, to magnetize the strings. The excursion (vibrations) of the strings create a signal that's induced into the TOP of the transducer (pickup) coil. It's really all that simple, ain't rocket science.

[Erv Niehaus]

Joe A.,
The slider switches came before the push buttons.
Erv