Pickup height - Quite an effective tool

[Music&Chaos]

Hello all,

I am fortunate, in that through working on not only my own guitars, but others, that I get to dial in guitars pretty darn often, including the pickup height.

A lot of work lately has also been including installs of new caps, wiring shemes, pickups, or all of it together.

This leads me to dialing a new set of pickups for that particular guitar once it has been fully set up.

I have noticed some pretty drastic changes in the way pickups sound depending on their height.

For a long time, I remember someone saying "as close as possible without pulling the strings down to it" or always something of that ilk "as close as possible".

I find that is a fair enough statement if you are just giving someone something to go off of, I mean, hey, it's better than the pickups being sunk into the body, right?

I found a good way to balance and adjust the height of the pickups is to start on the bridge pickup and get that set where you want first.

I normally run some testing on clean and dial in the bass thump where I want and then bring up the treble to balance that out.

Bridge pickups are almost always fairly close to the strings.

Now with neck pickups, I have found this to be quite varied depending on the guitar and model or pickup type.

For humbuckers, on some sets to balance it out with the bridge, it may be much, much further away than expected.

I noticed that my Planet Tone pickups, expecially the humbuckers, really tend to breathe when more space is given between the pickup and the strings in a pleasant way.

Some of my other pickups have one sweet spot and that is it - if you aren't in it - the pickup sounds DEAD.

That sweet spot can be found pretty easily most of the time, it's like "Oh yeah, there it is I think, let me try a little more... Nope, go back, go back!"

Funny how much just a few tweaks of a screwdriver can completely bring a pickup into our out of balance in a major way.

Had a friend and client who picked up a new guitar that I found for him after he gave me some details of what he was looking for. It came with a fresh setup from the shop (a professional one). They immediately sent it to me for work...... they said - this doesn't feel as good as your setup at all.

Made me feel good! Maybe part of it is geeky stuff like spending the extra time to really dial in what works for each specific guitar with pickup heights, etc.

If you have a guitar that isn't quite sounding balanced or doesn't have a punchy enough bass, try adjusting those pickup heights!

Further away for a punchier, tighter bass end, etc....just experiment!!

 

[mnemonic]

getting the height right is super important, I feel like in the past I didn’t experiment as much to get it right. Even pole height is important. I feel like I notice more of a difference with lower output pickups, going from ‘sounds great’ to ‘sounds too thin’ or ‘sounds too muddy’ can be half a screw turn in either direction.

The screw pole height is then useful after dialing the height in to get the attack right.

Whenever I read pickup reviews I’ll see one person say a pickup is muddy and undefined, someone else says that same pickup is punchy and tight. I always wonder what their heights were set at (and what guitar, what was its ‘natural sound’ like, what amp… people never share relevant information).

 

[SaberRed]

Whenever I read pickup reviews I’ll see one person say a pickup is muddy and undefined, someone else says that same pickup is punchy and tight. I always wonder what their heights were set at (and what guitar, what was its ‘natural sound’ like, what amp… people never share relevant information).

Indeed and this is one of the big problems when people buy a new pickup and tell us it x times better than their original pick ups; that and they didn’t record their original pickups for a direct comparison later.

 

[Mike Oxhuge]

Indeed and this is one of the big problems when people buy a new pickup and tell us it x times better than their original pick ups; that and they didn’t record their original pickups for a direct comparison later.

Also they often times compare old strings on old pickups vs new strings with the new. Another factor to the "new" tonal bliss.

 

[napalmdeath]

I have to work on this today myself. I picked up a used 2024 LP Studio, and the bridge BB Pro is god-awful bright and tinny/thin. Sounds like a Tele. It's up pretty high now, but I've researched thoughts on this pickup, and the consensus is to lower it a good bit. It's not warm, fat, or punchy, just bright and thin. As-is, I hate it. If some adjustments don't fix it, it's getting yanked. I much preferred the 490T in the SG I had. It was bigger and punchier, and that doesn't make sense being a thinner, lighter guitar.

 

[stratjacket]

It makes a difference for sure. The thing I hate most is weak sounding pickups so getting them low enough to sound full but not too low to sound weak is a good spot for me.

 

[thegame]

I have to work on this today myself. I picked up a used 2024 LP Studio, and the bridge BB Pro is god-awful bright and tinny/thin. Sounds like a Tele. It's up pretty high now, but I've researched thoughts on this pickup, and the consensus is to lower it a good bit. It's not warm, fat, or punchy, just bright and thin. As-is, I hate it. If some adjustments don't fix it, it's getting yanked. I much preferred the 490T in the SG I had. It was bigger and punchier, and that doesn't make sense being a thinner, lighter guitar.

Don’t waste your time on the BB Pro. They only sound decent through a super fat amp like a Recto or Uber.

 

[thegame]

Agree with the OP findings and I’ll further add that direct mount pickups considerably widen the pickup height sweet spot. The added coupling just seems to average out some of the minute differences that come with slight adjustments to spring loaded pickups. Direct mount makes the feel a bit more immediate, tonally fuller and punchy while spring loaded sounds more airy and shimmery

 

[Music&Chaos]

I have to work on this today myself. I picked up a used 2024 LP Studio, and the bridge BB Pro is god-awful bright and tinny/thin. Sounds like a Tele. It's up pretty high now, but I've researched thoughts on this pickup, and the consensus is to lower it a good bit. It's not warm, fat, or punchy, just bright and thin. As-is, I hate it. If some adjustments don't fix it, it's getting yanked. I much preferred the 490T in the SG I had. It was bigger and punchier, and that doesn't make sense being a thinner, lighter guitar.

I mean, sometimes a new pickup is the solution 100%.

After reading this, I played my LP I just perfected the height of the Planet Tone Blues Heritage set on and....

Damn dude, had one of those glued on smiles.

It really is a wonderful thing when every little piece of a rig lines up perfectly.

I tend to just plug straight into my amp and play.

 

[Music&Chaos]

getting the height right is super important, I feel like in the past I didn’t experiment as much to get it right. Even pole height is important. I feel like I notice more of a difference with lower output pickups, going from ‘sounds great’ to ‘sounds too thin’ or ‘sounds too muddy’ can be half a screw turn in either direction.

The screw pole height is then useful after dialing the height in to get the attack right.

Whenever I read pickup reviews I’ll see one person say a pickup is muddy and undefined, someone else says that same pickup is punchy and tight. I always wonder what their heights were set at (and what guitar, what was its ‘natural sound’ like, what amp… people never share relevant information).

I wish people listed more! I always say stuff like "I have this installed in X guitar going into X style amp"

If there is anything else like dropped tuning or thick/thin strings, I mention that as well.

I feel that it helps a little bit at least.