Pickup Mounting Question

[mike3117]

I'm just wondering, for those of you have done or had experience with both, which you preferred. A neck pickup mounted directly into the wood or mounted on the pickguard...
Pros and cons?

[LFB1988]

I prefer it to be mounted directly to the body, mostly for aesthetics. It's easier to adjust the pickup height when the pickups are mounted to the pickguard, but how often are you going to be doing that? Maybe it's a pain to get the pickguard off, but really, it's only 8 screws max.

[Miles Smiles]

At my 2004 Highway 1, I had to remove the strings and the neck, to get that pickguard off as it reaches a little bit below the fingerboard and the neck pickup prevents from just pulling it out.
I've been told, it could be removed by bending it out with brute force too, but I didn't try that.

But in fact I had to do that just once.

[mrmorrison]

I wish there was in depth site regarding how to mount a single-coil pickup to the body.

[LocustPlague]

There's really nothing in depth about it.. you pre-drill some pilot holes for the screws, then you screw them in. What kind of issues do you see/have with it?

[dugg]

I direct mounted the pickups on a bass I built back in '78. Since then, I've seen Music Man and various 'boutique' builders use this method too. There's at least one FCS Tele (the G.E.Smith model) that has pickups screwed into the wood. I'm convinced you can hear the difference and that direct mounting sounds better. Less microphonic feedback and longer sustain are what I mainly hear. I'm not sure why the feedback is reduced, but I think the sustain increases because when the pickup is mounted to the pickguard or mounting ring it can be coaxed into moving in sympathy with the strings (a teensy amount) and thus 'suck' energy out of the system. Direct mounting prevents the pickup from moving at all. The tone is better too, or certainly different. I'd say it's more 'present', or with some sort of midrange that wasn't there before. Some might say it sounds 'woody' as if the body and neck are more audible with direct mounting.

[mike3117]

Originally Posted by LocustPlague

There's really nothing in depth about it.. you pre-drill some pilot holes for the screws, then you screw them in. What kind of issues do you see/have with it?

So do you just eyeball it as far as centering the pickup evenly under the strings then?

[Miles Smiles]

Originally Posted by mike3117

So do you just eyeball it as far as centering the pickup evenly under the strings then?

That's a good point and it probably won't work that way, except your lucky. If your pickguard has holes for the pickup you could use it as a mark template.

In any case the pickup has to be right there, where the cutout in the pickguard is.

[jkingma]

Originally Posted by mike3117

So do you just eyeball it as far as centering the pickup evenly under the strings then?

Set the pickup in the hole then place your pickguard over it. Get everything lined up the way it should be then carefully remove the pickguard while holding the pickup in place. Then drill your screw holes and mount the pickup.

Mounting to the p/g allows for easier adjustment of the pickup height.

Mounting to the body is the way Leo intended it to be.

I agree with dugg. There is a definite difference in the tone. I can absolutely hear it and I am half deaf in one ear and have severe ringing in the other.

[LocustPlague]

What I did was measure from the edge of the pup cover to the center of the mounting hole, then put the pickguard on, marked the screw locations, took the guard off and measured mark to mark. If it matched the pup's screw hole distance, I went ahead and drilled. If not, I tried again.

[cg73cmc]

I always prefer mounting to the pickguard. I used to think this was a ridiculous way to do it but now I can see the logic in it.

[boris bubbanov]

Originally Posted by LocustPlague

There's really nothing in depth about it.. you pre-drill some pilot holes for the screws, then you screw them in. What kind of issues do you see/have with it?

I'd be real careful with those long vintage screws Fender includes with No-Caster pups, Original Vintage and the like. Those things go unnecessarily deep into the body, and can poke out the back. I like the #2 x .75 inch, plus or minus, screws that Bill Callaham and Lindy Fralin use. The pickups are not likely to catapault into the heavens. It is not a neck to body mount screw, after all, just a tiny pickup we're attaching here.