Are my pickups too low?

rico

I'm having a little tweak and I noticed that my pickups seem relatively low compared to some of the specs that are floating about the internet. On my tele they are as follows (measurements taken with string fretted at last fret, top of pole piece to bottom of string)

Neck: 2.75mm & 3.5mm
Bridge: 2.5mm & 2.75mm

Fender publishes around 1.6mm & 2mm on their website...

Alegree

Do you have an issue with their tone or output?
It's a taste thing.

stimpsonslostson

You could always tinker with it- any changes are easily reversed. 
It can make a surprising difference to the tone of your guitar. 

rico

I have spent a good hour or so tinkering this afternoon, I prefer the tone of the bridge when it is higher however the neck is then too quiet. I prefer the tone of the neck when its lower but then the bridge isn't as good! 

guitars4you

it is  a matter of taste - to a degree even playing style - maybe string gauge and how heavy/light you pick

Best bet is to play around and adjust accordingly - certainly no set measurement - If to close you can generally hear a nasty sort of clangy attack, especially when hitting Who style power chords, just as a reference - So back of accordingly until this cleans up - If to low you lose bite/power, but some might like this for a chilled voice

Best bet is a marginal adjustment each time, then you only need to fine tune a touch to go back to as was

ICBM

rico said:

I have spent a good hour or so tinkering this afternoon, I prefer the tone of the bridge when it is higher however the neck is then too quiet. I prefer the tone of the neck when its lower but then the bridge isn't as good! 

One high, one low is allowed . This is one of the things I like about Teles - the natural difference in voicing and output of the pickups makes it possible to use the pickup selector as an overdrive switch, with the right amp settings.

The only wrong pickup height setting is if it's so close the strings hit it when you play hard - that doesn't sound good.

Maynehead

Around 2mm is the closest I'd like to go with passive pickups. If you go closer than that you'll risk the magnetic pull on the strings doing weird stuff to your tone and intonation.

I had a strat that I just could not get the intonation right no matter what I did... turned out the bridge pickup was too close and gave the string a weird sitar like harmonic overtone that was screwing with the tuner.

aord43

I recently looked this up - not Tele specific - and found a couple of recommendations that they should be about 3.2mm and 1.6 mm (the originals were in inches, being US) which is not too far off your original settings.  But everywhere it says there are no hard rules.

rico

Interesting! There was a premier guitar article specifically describle Tele pickup heights and they recommended that the bridge pickup on the treble side should be 2/64ths! That's about 0.8mm...!

ICBM

Maynehead said:

Around 2mm is the closest I'd like to go with passive pickups. If you go closer than that you'll risk the magnetic pull on the strings doing weird stuff to your tone and intonation.

I had a strat that I just could not get the intonation right no matter what I did... turned out the bridge pickup was too close and gave the string a weird sitar like harmonic overtone that was screwing with the tuner.

Actually that is true - although it's more normally a problem on the neck pickup.