How to Adjust Your Guitar Pickups for the Best Sound

[sellen]

Here's the link How to Adjust Your Guitar Pickups for the Best Sound

 

So i tried out this, it's written at the bottom of the article. Sounded good i think

 

MANUFACTURER RECOMMENDATIONS

Many manufacturers will recommend how to ideally set up their pickups. They typically start from the factory setting, or provide turn-numbers assuming the screw head is flush with the pickup. Here’s one set of instructions using the turn method:

Set all poles when looking at the screw head from the side that only the rounded part rises above the flat part of the pup.

Low E: no change

A: raise 1 full turn

D: raise 1 ½ full turns

G: raise ½ turn

B: lower 1 full turn

High E raise ½ turn

[Twiz]

Thanks for posting that. You know, I went for a long time without even knowing that you could adjust the individual poles. Haha. Doh!

[sellen]

Thanks for posting that. You know, I went for a long time without even knowing that you could adjust the individual poles. Haha. Doh!

well i have never done it before now

 

Had a jam now with these pole screw adjustments and it sounded good to my ears. But as they say in the article all pickups are different with different adjustments.

[spacealf]

That's about where I am at without the article. Takes some time to determine if every string is the same volume. And the B string may have to be downed even more for some reason it is always the loudest it seems.

But that is about where it ends up with turning the screws (or the individual poles) to have the guitar sound equal with all strings in volume.

[kidblast]

interesting debate and numbers. I was always under the impression that you wanted to sort of echo the string radius as to how you set the height of the screws. there was also (maybe mythical) a setting where you set the screw heads so they oppose each other, in other words, if the screw head for the 6th srting is in "/" position, the 5th string should be set so it is like so "\" wise the fourth string pole would be set back to "/" and so on.

 

so many variables to explore, but it leaves us so little time to actually play!

[ShredAstaire]

Did you clean it up afterwards? Hey-oh!!!! :)

[sellen]

Did you clean it up afterwards? Hey-oh!!!! :)

yes i had to , when i lowered the B pole screw on pickup, wax came out

[surfpup]

I was always under the impression that you wanted to sort of echo the string radius as to how you set the height of the screws.

 

This is what I generally do. Notably though, many Fender pickups have staggered heights to balance out string volumes. Might try this next time I do a set up.

[Searcy]

"I wanted them to sell it without any adjusting screws.... ...it was not necessary to have [adjustable] pole pieces...well when you take away a talking point from a salesman it’s like breaking off your arm.... so they finally decided they wanted screws in there, so I put adjusting screws in it for them. The question they asked me then was which way should those screws set? Should they set up or down? Well you’ve got to give them an answer.. so I decided to take the one closest to the fingerboard and put the screws facing it and the one closest to the bridge towards the bridge, laugh...that made them happy, they had a set way that it should be set, it only amounted to turning the pickup around... "

 

~Seth Lover

[Morkolo]

This is what I generally do. Notably though, many Fender pickups have staggered heights to balance out string volumes. Might try this next time I do a set up.

 

Yeah the Texas Specials in my Strat are all over the place but they still sound good.