NGPD - Goodies from VA for my Strat and pickup musical chair

[Joe Bfstplk]

So, I lowered all 4 pickups 1/2 a screw turn. On a #6-32 screw, that's 1/64". I thought it sounded great before. That 1/64" drop made it at least 37% better. Really stunned that I could love the sound of this guitar any more than I do currently....

On a marginally related topic - just used my birthday gift $$$ and ordered a 5% underwound Split Steel Pole Tele bridge pickup and a vintage Split Blade Tele neck pickup to put in the bridge and middle pickup spots of my red Fender Tele.

Since Rory does such a great vintage Tele sound, and the VZ does a fantastic modern-country/rock-ish Tele sound, I decided the red Fender Tele with the SD Jazz at the neck should be more of a blues/rock Tele.

It'll use the full HB in parallel (or series via the tone pot pull-switch) along with the bridge pickup (with its P90-ish flavor) in the spots where I had been splitting the Jazz to be hum-cancelling with the single-coil bridge pickup. If the 1/2 OOP sounds stink, maybe I'll drop to a 4-way switch with just N, N+B, M+B, and B....

 

[State of Epicicity]

So, I lowered all 4 pickups 1/2 a screw turn. On a #6-32 screw, that's 1/64". I thought it sounded great before. That 1/64" drop made it at least 37% better. Really stunned that I could love the sound of this guitar any more than I do currently....

How awesome! It's amazing to me how little it takes to make a big difference in tone. I went the opposite way recently: I pulled my floating Floyd back all the way and raised my bridge humbucker until I could fret the highest fret on each string and still clear the pickup. I don't know how far I raised it, but I think it was a few millimeters. It gave me the extra oomph I was looking for. Next of course I raised the neck to match pick attack and sustain by ear. Then I reset the I/O of the Axe-FX III, and voilà!

Those Fralin split blares just look so damn awesome, they really make me want to try a set one day.