Bridge Pickup Height (Treble Side)

[Brent Hutto]

For the first few months I've had my MiM Player Telecaster, I've not messed with the pickup heights. I figured it sounded great to me when I demoed it in the store and for the 99% of my playing that is on the neck pickup it sounds very balanced, warm and smooth to me playing at home every day. I did of course tweak the action/relief/intonation when I brought it home but the pickups are more or less at Fender's usual factory spec.

Lately I've been venturing into the other two switch positions and not entirely pleased with the tone. The middle position was a bit twangy and the bridge pretty shrill but I figured that was some combination of normal Telecaster twang and my own heavy-handed picking. Today it occurred to me that I'd never really tried moving the bridge pickup up or down from those initial starting specs.

Just eyeballing it, the treble side of the bridge looked pretty high. And to my ears, it was the top strings that sounded so biting when I flipped the switch all the way down. All it took was one small nudge of the screwdriver on the treble-side (lowering that side about 1/64") and I noticed two things after the change:

1) The 1st and 2nd strings instantly went out of tune. By a fair bit. Also had to tweak the 3rd string slightly.
2) I no longer needed to back off the Tone knob when switching to the bridge pickup.

So one surprise was how much of an improvement such a small tweak produced. The other was the fact that, apparently, the pickup was pulling the strings out of tune. Is that something you normally see when changing pickup height? Changes in tuning?

I also found I need to re-adjust my intonation on several strings slightly. That might be due to the winter weather moving the neck around a bit, I had not compared harmonics to fretted 12th strings for several months so maybe I was due for an intonation check anyway, nothing to do with the pickups.

Does anyone else find that Fender stock recommendation of around 4 64ths under the treble side of the bridge is a little too high? Mine was actually more like 4-1/2 64ths but still higher than the neck pickup or the bass side of the bridge.

 

[Wallaby]

The recommendations are just starting points.

Whether a particular pickup height is too low, too high or just right depends on so many subjective things, the only realistic answer is to test and adjust, test and adjust, test and adjust etc. until it sounds good to you with your strings, your playing, your gear, your ears and your goals.

1/16" is where I begin, it's a sane place to start. Other people use other measurements, coins, expensive gauges, etc., all methods are valid.

After that it is completely by ear. And to me, getting the bridge pickup right is the hardest part, and I HATE messing that up once I find it. Once I have it I balance the neck pickup around it. Then tweak slightly to make the middle position perfect.

Getting it just right takes practice and experience, especially learning to identify specific qualities of the sound and learning how particular pickup adjustments will affect them.

As an example - is it too bright, or is the treble too loud? Is that the same thing? How do I proceed? Where did that cool midrange sound go? Uh-oh.

Sometimes lowering a pickup that's too bright overall will make it seem brighter, and sometimes raising a pickup that has shrill overtones in the treble will thicken up the treble and solve the problem. Same for bass notes that are too crispy or aggressive, it takes some testing.

I think everyone has their own method and internal vocabulary for it, they've worked it out through experimentation.

It sounds like you made some good progress! As far as the tuning change, pickups can be so close that they pull the strings out of tune, maybe that was happening and you were compensating for it in your tuning?

 

[NoTeleBob]

I don't think pickup magnets will pull a guitar Into or out of tune. But they can cause more warble when closer. And less when further away.

Add to that the fact that when you pick a note, it might start at the tuned pitch but then it very quickly wanders. If you look at a graphic readout you will see this.

I'd conclude that the warble was "correcting " the pitch for your ear. Change the warble and your ear wants a pitch / tuning change to sound right.

 

[birdawesome]

5/64” is where I set mine. It’s just the recommended starting point from Fender’s website. If I feel the need to go up or down a hair I do so on a whim, but usually don’t pay all that much attention to it. You have to have it pretty darn close to the string to get weird stuff happening

 

[kuch]

For the first few months I've had my MiM Player Telecaster, I've not messed with the pickup heights. I figured it sounded great to me when I demoed it in the store and for the 99% of my playing that is on the neck pickup it sounds very balanced, warm and smooth to me playing at home every day. I did of course tweak the action/relief/intonation when I brought it home but the pickups are more or less at Fender's usual factory spec.

Lately I've been venturing into the other two switch positions and not entirely pleased with the tone. The middle position was a bit twangy and the bridge pretty shrill but I figured that was some combination of normal Telecaster twang and my own heavy-handed picking. Today it occurred to me that I'd never really tried moving the bridge pickup up or down from those initial starting specs.

Just eyeballing it, the treble side of the bridge looked pretty high. And to my ears, it was the top strings that sounded so biting when I flipped the switch all the way down. All it took was one small nudge of the screwdriver on the treble-side (lowering that side about 1/64") and I noticed two things after the change:

1) The 1st and 2nd strings instantly went out of tune. By a fair bit. Also had to tweak the 3rd string slightly.
2) I no longer needed to back off the Tone knob when switching to the bridge pickup.

So one surprise was how much of an improvement such a small tweak produced. The other was the fact that, apparently, the pickup was pulling the strings out of tune. Is that something you normally see when changing pickup height? Changes in tuning?

I also found I need to re-adjust my intonation on several strings slightly. That might be due to the winter weather moving the neck around a bit, I had not compared harmonics to fretted 12th strings for several months so maybe I was due for an intonation check anyway, nothing to do with the pickups.

Does anyone else find that Fender stock recommendation of around 4 64ths under the treble side of the bridge is a little too high? Mine was actually more like 4-1/2 64ths but still higher than the neck pickup or the bass side of the bridge.

I don't know if you've looked this up but here's Fender's tele set up guide. As said above, it's pretty much a starting point. Make adjustments to your taste and playing style

 

[Brent Hutto]

I'm not inclined to go back and experiment, maybe something got nudged when I was measuring and adjusting the pickup height to make those strings go out of tune.

But about the "warble" thing NoTeleBob mentioned...

Now that I've lowered that end of the bridge and heard how pure those high notes on the bridge pickup sound, I do think it was too close to the strings and messing up the overtones. Kind of like when the piano tuner is doing the "unisons" on the highest keys of the piano, it was really clashy sounding.

Getting it just right takes practice and experience, especially learning to identify specific qualities of the sound and learning how particular pickup adjustments will affect them.

As an example - is it too bright, or is the treble too loud? Is that the same thing? How do I proceed? Where did that cool midrange sound go? Uh-oh.

Sometimes lowering a pickup that's too bright overall will make it seem brighter, and sometimes raising a pickup that has shrill overtones in the treble will thicken up the treble and solve the problem. Same for bass notes that are too crispy or aggressive, it takes some testing.

Yes, it is something that takes judgement to know what I'm hearing. The high notes on my bridge pickup were more too-harsh rather than too-loud.

All's well, at least for now. While I was at it I went ahead and very carefully tweaked the intonation of all six strings. Several of them had drifted slightly out. It's amazing how much sweeter the basic cowboy-chord C-major sounds (with that open G string) when the intonation is just about perfect.

I should have noticed the last couple weeks that it was getting off. I frequently play up the neck a ways but use some open-string unisons or octaves with notes I'm playing. I'd just about quit playing those lately because they didn't sound right but that was just the intonation.

The final test tonight was playing the same little melody through several times and flipping the switch each time. Neck, Middle, Bridge, Middle, Neck, Middle, Bridge. I used some open strings along with a lot of the 5th through 10th fret. Each position had its own sound but all three of them were very pleasant. No urge to crank the Tone or Volume knobs to get the three positions balanced or tone down any ice pick on the Bridge.

 

[Brent Hutto]

I don't know if you've looked this up but here's Fender's tele set up guide. As said above, it's pretty much a starting point. Make adjustments to your taste and playing style

Yes, thank you for posting but I do have that document. I keep a hardcopy of it in my tool kit with the gauges, screwdrivers, string winder, etc.