Mounting Bridge Pick up soild improve tone

From time to time you come something and you want to know how to. A guy on youtube was demoing a telecaster and talking about how the bridge pick up is mounted solid to the body. To keep the the pick up to the right height. Do you need to glue a thin piece of wood in the hole?Or is there a way better to make it solid to the body?

Who's to say the tone will get "better", that's subjective like anything else with a electric guitar.

I'll posit that the way a pickup is mounted cannot possibly affect the sound. A pickup is not a mechanical part. It is an electrical part. All it does is gather sound waves from the strings and send them to an output.

What DOES affect a Tele bridge pickup is the bridge plate. Type of material can affect the electrical function of the pickup.

I'll posit that the way a pickup is mounted cannot possibly affect the sound. A pickup is not a mechanical part. It is an electrical part. All it does is gather sound waves from the strings and send them to an output.

What DOES affect a Tele bridge pickup is the bridge plate. Type of material can affect the electrical function of the pickup.

I think you've over reached. A body mounted pickup won't be able in interact with the metal bridge plate, and some of the microphonics associated with mounting them together will be lost. Not every bridge mounted pickup has such a nature but enough do, I feel you gotta mention it.

I agree with Sjtalon, it may sound better or it may sound about the same or it may sound different only at high gain. Or it may sound worse.

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t25/Bubbanov/17FEB272010001.jpg

I cannot remember exactly how I've done these, but I support the pickup at the points where the 3 holes exist already and NOT by putting material under the center of the pickup then winching it down. If you primarily support the pup in the center and force the outer portions of the plate down, it will squeal out of control. A pickup does have a mechanical aspect to it; put torque on the pickup and create some tiny voids, and it will demonstrate to you the mechanics of the part.

Who's to say the tone will get "better", that's subjective like anything else with a electric guitar.

precisely.

you'd need to properly a/b the pup bridge and pup body mount scenarios to make a decision as to which affords YOU "better tone".

imho, most of this is pup/mount tone thing is just more guitar nonsense for folks with time on their hands.

All you need is different length screw sizes and surgical tubing to get a bridge pup down to the bridge plate. The sustain relates to the bridge plate material and saddles more than mounting it to the body IMO.

I mount my neck pup to the body, (52RI) and use longer screws so I can get it down far enough.

I'll add, do most great tele players mount the bridge pup to the body? Nope, so there you go.

Garrett is not strictly correct. The pick-up is a transducer taking one form of energy, mechanical, and converting it to an electrical signal. Logic suggest that if the pick-up is strongly effected by being attached to a metal plate it would be effected as much, but differently, by not being attached to the metal plate.

Mounting a bridge pickup to the body using 3 screws doesn't affect tone. Raising or lowering the pickup affects tone. If you are using a bridge plate where metal surrounds the pickup can have an affect on tone if it is ferrous (magnetically active) material. How thick a bridge plate is made affects sustain and in some way the tone.

Mounting a bridge pickup to the body using 3 screws doesn't affect tone. Raising or lowering the pickup affects tone. If you are using a bridge plate where metal surrounds the pickup can have an affect on tone if it is ferrous (magnetically active) material. How thick a bridge plate is made affects sustain and in some way the tone.

This is the conclusion I'd agree with.

Hmm, but I suppose the pickup is converting a little bit of sound from the vibrating plate. That said, I very highly doubt anyone would hear the difference in a blind test.

I love phrases like "improves tone." Completely vague, subjective, and unverifiable.

Thanks for the responses. Boris that picture is exactly what the guys tele looked like.

Why do people want to change the tele? If you want a solid mounted pick up buy a Les paul .

If you are using a bridge plate where metal surrounds the pickup can have an affect on tone if it is ferrous (magnetically active) material.

I hear that.

In the end, that's the BIG reason this guitar needed the body mount of the bridge pickup.

This guitar sounds different even with the pickup body mounted, when a normal plate was installed and not a half plate. The magnetic steel bridge plate around this humbucker (this is a Seymour Duncan STK-T3b) was messing with the potential of this pickup and which I why I'd pulled it out of a more conventional Tele. It even noise cancels better this way, with both coils in use.

+

Anyway, experimentation is fun and I am so glad I re-did this Esquire so that the pickup is really coming at you and yet is still very twangy depending on which position the blade is in.