P 90 pickups

[slk]

When setting up a guitar with P90 pickups, should they be relatively close to the strings or down quite a bit. I have always heard about 1/8 or so to the pole screws???

 

Thanks

Steve

[stein]

It's a matter of personal preference.

 

Personally, I haven't heard of this 1/8" recommendation for ANY pickup (to the poles). That's real close.

 

I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that if anyone recommends that for a distance, they would be wrong. Not that if someone does it for themselves that I would say they are. Rather, most, if they got a guitar back having been adjusted that way, would not like it as much.

 

I am really racking my brain to try and remember a specific distance that would be a good STARTING point for a P-90.

 

I think this is a good question, because the dogear surface-mount type doesn't have an adjustment, and requires shims be added when they are mounted if they are too low. I think this "issue" with dogear'd P-90's is made worse by the fact that on a two pup guitar (p-90), the bridge pup usually needs to be closer to the strings than the neck if they are to have somewhat of a balenced output when switching. Also, some guitars have the neck pup mounted fairly close as it is.

[slk]

I am thinking Gibson said it was a good starting point. Even less, but not so sure that is a good idea. I have 3 P90's. So it is even more of a problem with the center pickup.......

 

http://www2.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/pickup-height-0514-2011.aspx

[stein]

I am thinking Gibson said it was a good starting point. Even less, but not so sure that is a good idea. I have 3 P90's. So it is even more of a problem with the center pickup.......

 

http://www2.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/pickup-height-0514-2011.aspx

I see they also state "when the strings are pressed onto the fingerbaord"- that makes sense. That's gonna give a much lower measurement, particularly on the neck pup.

 

But still, 3/32" for the neck and 1/16" for the bridge is awful close. I wonder where the author of this article got this?

 

I am thinking that the measurements stated in the article are NOT the most common, or the prevailing opinion.

 

Regarding the P-90, I think one could make a case that if you take vintage Gibby's and measure the distance to the neck pup as they were built, you might come up that close. But there is also some info that suggest that the designers back in the day felt they got it wrong, and that they were made with the pup TOO close.

 

I think it is worth noting that at the time when the P-90 was the common pickup for Gibson, they were mounted on archtop guitars. The fingerbaord is much higher from the body on these. Archtop accoustics were the "proffesional" guitars of that day, and the solid bodied guitars that are the most popular now were to become more common and "proffesional" grade years later. Note also that with the humbucker, it was designed around a different mounting altogether.

 

In short, to come up with an origonal "vintage spec", don't measure the distances on solid bodies. Measure the distances on archtops, when the pups were designed.

[cjsinla]

What I do is strum a chord and figure out which strings have too much emphasis and which ones have too little emphasis to my ear. Then, I raise and lower individual poles accordingly. You may end up with a staggered look like on a Strat.