Pickup height

I like mine so high that when I play the string always hits them. What about you guys?

I use Texas Specials:

Bridge PU: Bass - 8/64" (3.6 mm) Treble - 6/64" (2.4 mm)

then I adjusted the neck PU to be just a tiny bit louder.

I use Texas Specials:

Bridge PU: Bass - 8/64" (3.6 mm) Treble - 6/64" (2.4 mm)

then I adjusted the neck PU to be just a tiny bit louder.

Been thinking of putting some Texas specials in. How do you like them?

They might not float everybody's boat. It depends on what kind of music you play.

Personally, I love them.

They sound a bit warmer, higher output, stronger mids and presence (staggered poles). This, I think, is what makes them versatile. Just like Lollars they're suitable for more distorted sounds, but unlike those, TX Specials still have plenty of twang.

Many people say they sound "too dark", but I'd say it's not true, they simply have more balls than a standard Tele PU without compromising the Tele caracter.

I rekon the Stratitus is at an epic level on your guitar…. having problems intonating the E and A strings?

Ron Kirn

I rekon the Stratitus is at an epic level on your guitar…. having problems intonating the E and A strings?

Ron Kirn

I thought this to. maybe a pickup height adjustment would be in order before buying new pickups?:lol:

I rekon the Stratitus is at an epic level on your guitar…. having problems intonating the E and A strings?

Intonation? :confused: What's that ... ? :mrgreen:

I like mine so high that when I play the string always hits them. What about you guys?


Not me. I like my pickups low. Way low.

Is there a point to having the pickups so high that the string "always" hits them? After all, the best way to reduce string vibration is to have it hit something, right?

I like having mine so low I need a flashlight to see them

I have used the nickel method for years now. One on the high e and two on the low. Back in the 80's I had some EMG's and had them so high they just about touched the strings.

problem is. . . entirely too many think LOUD is cool…. not so… Cool is cool…. and loud is more times than not, obnoxious… but.. today.. seems, obnoxious has become cool.. sup with that?

I have a lotta guys send me Mp3's of their garage bands.. all of 'em are the same…. everything that can be, is turned to "10".. and what can't be turned is moved as close as possible….

every time, it's the same… 2 notes in, and I'm thinking Ooooohhh Fuuuuuuddddge,,,, how long is this gonna last…


this is why I have often said YOU are no authority on how YOU sound… you're prejudiced..if you (the "yous" here are all inclusive) are playing and assessing sound at the same time, you're nuts… at the very least, you should be recording yourselves and making a determination based on the playback.. better yet, have someone else that knows nothing about gear, but likes music, give you an unbiased opinion… I mean, if you were in a studio, doing it right, that's who your producer would be thinking of… he doesn't give a flip what YOU want… he wants to sell CD's..


Someone that moves the pickups up to a height that interferes with the strings… well… where's the bar... :rolleyes:

r

Right on Mr Ron - but without the proper instruction how would a new guy know these things ?

The bar is where they'll never play and get paid union scale.

I like mine so high that when I play the string always hits them. What about you guys?

I prefer mine like baby bear's porridge.

When I pluck my guitar strings I like them to vibrate unimpeded.. so lower than yours :lol:

I used to find setting pickup height to be the toughest part of a setup.... wasted more time than I can count tinkering with pickup height...

I've tried it all... nickels, Fender's setup guide, various magic numbers from all over the net... sometimes it would sound good, sometimes not so much... Ultimately it all comes down to adjusting height by ear, but that's easier said than done... It can get so confusing learning to trust your ears... "Is this the sweet spot, was it the way I had it 4 screw turns ago, or have I not found it yet?".

The conclusion I've come to is to not worry about it so much... At some point I realized that every time I tweak an amp knob it makes as much or more difference as a slight pickup adjustment does...

These days I just set all of the amp's eq knobs at 5, set the neck p/u height low enough to avoid stratitis while fretting the last fret and adjust it a bit lower till I like what I hear, mainly looking for a good ballance between bass and treb...not too boomy, not too thin... then I'll adjust the bridge height to roughly match the output of the neck... Final height tweaking is done in the middle position, I like the middle to have that woody/chimey sound, usually I'll just lower the bridge a little more and it sounds ok.....

Then it's time to call the p/u height close enough for rock n' roll and start tweaking the amp eq... for me that's when I find the sweet spot...

I'm sure there are better methods out there, but this is the only way I've been able to quit tinkering and get back to playing.... darn, now I wanna go home and adjust my p/u's.... it's never ending :lol:

I rekon the Stratitus is at an epic level on your guitar…. having problems intonating the E and A strings?

Ron Kirn

What does stratitis mean?

problem is. . . entirely too many think LOUD is cool…. not so… Cool is cool…. and loud is more times than not, obnoxious… but.. today.. seems, obnoxious has become cool.. sup with that?

I have a lotta guys send me Mp3's of their garage bands.. all of 'em are the same…. everything that can be, is turned to "10".. and what can't be turned is moved as close as possible….

every time, it's the same… 2 notes in, and I'm thinking Ooooohhh Fuuuuuuddddge,,,, how long is this gonna last…

this is why I have often said YOU are no authority on how YOU sound… you're prejudiced..if you (the "yous" here are all inclusive) are playing and assessing sound at the same time, you're nuts… at the very least, you should be recording yourselves and making a determination based on the playback.. better yet, have someone else that knows nothing about gear, but likes music, give you an unbiased opinion… I mean, if you were in a studio, doing it right, that's who your producer would be thinking of… he doesn't give a flip what YOU want… he wants to sell CD's..

Someone that moves the pickups up to a height that interferes with the strings… well… where's the bar... :rolleyes:

r

There's no right or wrong way with music though. That's the beauty of it. There is no bar

Stratitus is a term coined by Chris Kinman, I think, It refers to the phenomena where single coil pickups are raised to such a close proximity to the strings, that the magnet's "pull" distorts the vibrations of the string… pulling it into an asynchronous waveform.. the resulting sound mirrors perfectly a string badly out of intonation.

There is no bar

the bar I was speaking of, has Single Malt available… :wink:

Ron Kirn

Especially on a Strat, I hate the Stratitus effect so much, that I hook a tuner up to my Strat with an instrument cord, and keep lowering the pickups until when fretted at the 12th (where you (generally) check intonation) the needle will remain steady on the tuner when moderately plucking a string or hitting it with a pick, I want the note to remain steady and no wavering of the tuner when the note is struck on ANY of the three pickups. If it's wavering I lower until it doesn't.

On the other hand I have a friend that firmly believes you should hear the pick hitting the string, thumping loudly with every note he plays, and have the wonderful shimmering wah, wah effect as the notes are played. Intonation, we don't need no stinkin' intonation.

If you like the sound of strings clanking against a pickup, then go for it, it's your guitar and your personal sound. As for me, it would drive me utterly bat****.

Rookie ? #1027 - There are two outside screws to both the bridge and neck Pups. On the bridge Pup there is a screw in the middle portion of the plate or three screws total around the bridge pup. Does the middle screw have anything to do with Pup height adjustment?

On another front, I have been going with the 1 Nickel/2 Nickel method with my Tele and Keystone Pups and it gets in range......trying to loosen up a bit and go more with my ear once I use that as a starting point. Seems to work....but I guess in reality they all work, just depends on what you want to hear.

I have used the B Lawrence nickel method usually, and have tweaked up and down from that and contrary to what I read on the net, it didnt make that much difference. The 'find sweet spot with a 1/4 turn" LoL...didnt happen in my case. YMMV etc!

There's no right or wrong way with music though. That's the beauty of it. There is no bar

A million or two other musicians may disagree with you but hey, it's your guitar so have it your way.

Never say never:mrgreen::cool:

I've actually begun to duct tape my pickups right to the strings.
Sounds great.
Now I'm off to take the bar exam.

Mine must have been on the absolute limit because last week I changed my string gauge from standard set of 10's up to 10.5's and the guitar played and sounded awful. It took me more than 24 hours to realise that the pickups were pulling on the heavier gauge strings so when I lowered the pickups by half a turn everything went back to normal.

So basically there is a limit to how high you can set the pickups before the magnets pull your strings and create weird harmonic overtones and generally screw up your tuning and intonation.

you shoulda just tightened the strings enough to offset the pulling.:shock::rolleyes:

I've been all round the Wrekin with this, never had any problems setting and balancing 'buckers, including polepiece adjustment, but singles have always been a challenge.

I've had 'em set too boomy, too ice-picky, from piss-weak to Stratitis and back again trying to find the sweet spot, with them sounding right one day, wrong the next and so on. My ears seem to become desensitised to spectral volume differences after a while, probably due in no small part to the abuse I've subjected them to over the years.

It's taken some time, but my Tele and Strat sound pretty killer right now through a combination of recommended measurements (Ron Kirn's 1/8" starting point, to be precise), ears and logic...no need for a big difference between top and bottom E measurements, can't happen on a flat top acoustic without crazy action...I know that's a crude principle which ignores the difference between signal and vibration but heck, it works for me. :wink:

This pedantic, time consuming exercise has ended up with my Tele (Baja) pups at ~ 3mm treble, 3.5mm bass neck and 3.5mm trble, 4mm bass bridge and the Strat (equal wind Duncan SSL-1s) at ~ 3mm treble, 3.5mm bass neck, same for middle and 2.5mm treble, 3mm bass bridge.

Pickup height is an important part of setup, get it wrong and it'll mess with your playing!

It depends on the pickup. In particular, it depends on the magnet strength of the pickup. For high-gauss Alnico 5 pups, I would keep them lower, just under the point of stratitis. On the other hand, back when I used Lace Sensors, I had to have them as close as possible without touching. Most models have very weak magnets, and just sounded dull and weak if they were set up far from the strings.

For single-coils (including noise-free models), I lower them to the point that I no longer have tuning issues, but no further. I want maximum output. On full-sized humbuckers, I tilt and lower the neck pickup much further than the bridge to reduce muddy bass. Most neck humbuckers are just too powerful for me.

I've actually begun to duct tape my pickups right to the strings.
Sounds great.
Now I'm off to take the bar exam.

hmmm ... interesting. Do you find that your tone varies from brand to brand? What would you consider to be the best tone tape?

Naturally, there's no right or wrong duct tape, it all sticks to the ear of the beholder.
But, that being said, the BEST duct tape is the vintage stuff, that is no longer available.
Even better yet, is the old stuff after it's been naturally aged and reliced through use.