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Stock P-90 Pickup height on SG Classic?


rkymtnhi

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Welcome to the forum. Are you using the same make / guage of strings as came originally with the guitar?

 

I have an SG Classic but don't know if there is a 'factory spec' for pup height. To be honest its one of the first things I change when I get a new guitar. Its easy to adjust them to suit your ears. P-90's traditionally sit pretty close to the string, the neck pup less so. Just be careful not to wind either down too far as they <might> just pop off the threaded clips that fix to the screws. They are the Devil's own job to put back and to make matters worse you have to remove the scratch plate, which means also removing the bridge!! You will be saying a few choice words if this happens, believe me!

 

Just balance your pups to what sounds good, for me its a matter of making sure the neck pup is not louder than the bridge.

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funny you say that... that's exactly what happened--only I had lowered the neck pickup until it popped off the screw. #-o I had to loosen the strings, remove the bridge and scratchplate before resetting everything and re-intonating the guitar. I bought the guitar from another owner, so I'm not sure what the gauge of strings are or if he had changed the pickup height. I'll be installing 10s shortly. The pickups drove my amp into overdrive when I had initially plugged in the guitar--and this on an amp set clean. I tried adjusting the pickup heights to lower the output and clean up the sound a bit.

 

After all of that fiddling around with the guitar, I'd just like to know the factory specs so that I can re-set them when I'm getting fickle again. :-s

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I've never found a factory spec. The only thing I've found on the Gisbson site is to set them to where you like the sound. If you want a number try around 2mm as a starting point, that's what Fender suggests for their vintage single coils. Measured from the bottom of the string to the pickup with the string pressed at the last fret.

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Sorry, I meant wound down! I knew what I meant!

 

You can also screw down the pole piece screws as well as lower the pups. That may help if you like the neck pup to be low, but don't want it to pop off the thread.

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