Pickup height adjustment?

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robgilmorobgilmo Frets: 3359
Is there a rule of thumb when doing this? How do you know when its right? How do you know when its wrong even?
A Deuce , a Tele and a cup of tea.
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Comments

  • crunchmancrunchman Frets: 11413
    I know Fender have recommended heights on their website.  I tend to use those as a starting point and tweak a little bit from there.  Gibson may have something similar.  I can't remember as I haven't messed with my Gibsons recently.
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  • grungebobgrungebob Frets: 3299
    just use your ears,  or if you want as technical as I get , not so high that fretting the last fret makes the string touch the neck pole pieces. 
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  • robgilmorobgilmo Frets: 3359
    Thanks guys, Ive used the Fender recommended heights and got as close as I could using a ruler, Ill have a play with them, is there no real rule of thumb then? Its a Squier Standard Tele.  
    A Deuce , a Tele and a cup of tea.
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  • VoxmanVoxman Frets: 4718
    It also depends on the guitar.  On some guitars if the p/ups are too close to the strings, you can get 'double-toning' whereby the magnet strength interferes with the natural string vibration and you get an unpleasant 'double tone'.  Old Strats with fixed pole height p/ups can be particularly susceptible, and particularly on the bass side you may need to lower the p/up down.  

    Also, its a misconception to try & get the p/up is as near as possible to the string. Certainly, it has an effect on volume - but you will often find that lowering your p/ups gives a much better tone, and on some guitars even modest height adjustments can noticeably affect tone.  You want to try and get the volume levels of each p/up about the same so you don't get volume spikes or dips when you change p/up selections, and you also want the tone & volume to be consistent across all 6 strings.  
    I started out with nothing..... but I've still got most of it left (Seasick Steve)
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  • RolandRoland Frets: 8590
    edited February 2017
    Once you've factored in pickup type, cover alloy, string gauge and composition, neck relief and playing style a comparative measurement isn't very helpful. With a new (to me) guitar I fret at the 12th and measure 1/16th inch pickup clearance on the treble side, and 1/8th (maybe 3/32) on the bass. Then I lower the neck pickup until it sounds right, and the string volumes are balanced. Then I do the same for the bridge pickup, also balancing the volume with the neck pickup.
    Tree recycler, and guitarist with  https://www.undercoversband.com/.
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  • guitarfishbayguitarfishbay Frets: 7953
    edited February 2017
    Roland said:
    Once you've factored in pickup type, cover alloy, string gauge and composition, neck relief and playing style a comparative measurement isn't very helpful. With a new (to me) guitar I fret at the 12th and measure 1/16th inch pickup clearance on the treble side, and 1/8th (maybe 3/32) on the bass. Then I lower the neck pickup until it sounds right, and the string volumes are balanced. Then I do the same for the bridge pickup, also balancing the volume with the neck pickup.
    Why fret at the 12th?

    I thought it was more common to fret the very last note on the neck?

    My method is if there's a primary pickup (for example I'm mostly on bridge pickup) then set that up first so that it sounds balanced across the strings on a clean setting.  Then try it with some other sounds and get a feel for it, if it needs any adjustments count the 1/4 turns and note them on a piece of paper so you can get back to where you were before as necessary.  Go on feel, don't worry too much about what other people have as measurements.

    Once you've got one pickup sorted it reduces your options with the other pickups, assuming they're matched in terms of output.  So once the bridge is done, I try to get the neck sounding balanced with the bridge in terms of output, and balanced with itself in terms of bass/treble response.
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  • robgilmorobgilmo Frets: 3359
    Ive had a play with it and lowered the bridge pickup by a full screw turn, it made a huge difference, before my bass was way too loud and muddy. I often see people running riffs at the first few frets and the bass side always sounded nice and sparkly but when I tried it my bass side sounded loud and muddy and drowned everything else out, so Its much better now but I will need to fine tune it.

    From what I gather Teles sound bright anyway and my Vox Cambridge sounds quite bright so I shouldn't really be getting muddy bass strings, should I?
    A Deuce , a Tele and a cup of tea.
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