Pickup Height?

rsf1977

rsf1977

Fractal Fanatic
when a pickup is too close what does it to do the sound of the strings? How would you identify it if you heard it?
 
Sometimes it'll sound boomy to me, it will have ghost or wolf notes and it usually doesn't sound right to my ears (real specific one there) :lol: It's most noticeable on single coil guitars to me. With humbuckers it isn't as apparent, but lowering them tends to sweeten them up to me. Once again, very weird terminology, but it makes sense in my head.

You can also start losing sustain because the magnetic pull will effect string vibration and it can effect tuning and intonation...I'm not kidding.

A good rule of thumb to start with is to fret at the highest fret on the low E string, and adjust the bass side of the pickup to where 2 nickels will just pass under it and then do the same with the high E string, but with 1 nickel. After that you can adjust to taste and for balance.
 
shasha said:
A good rule of thumb to start with is to fret at the highest fret on the low E string, and adjust the bass side of the pickup to where 2 nickels will just pass under it and then do the same with the high E string, but with 1 nickel. After that you can adjust to taste and for balance.
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For the best tone what date should be on the nickel? I will try buffalo nickel for vintage settings. :lol:

I just checked and that is actually pretty close to what my setup guy has them at.
 
Charlie Wardick said:
shasha said:
A good rule of thumb to start with is to fret at the highest fret on the low E string, and adjust the bass side of the pickup to where 2 nickels will just pass under it and then do the same with the high E string, but with 1 nickel. After that you can adjust to taste and for balance.
Click to expand...

For the best tone what date should be on the nickel? I will try buffalo nickel for vintage settings. :lol:

I just checked and that is actually pretty close to what my setup guy has them at.
Click to expand...
Pre-1969 is best for that Clapton tone, Hendrix-esque stuff is a limited edition 1996 coin which is funny because it was from after he died. Rumor has it that he traveled to the future for it.
 
found a good definition of Wolf Notes

Wolf Tone
A particular type of resonance often associated with stringed instruments, especially the cello, violin and viola. Wolf tones occur when the resonant frequency of a vibrating string and the resonant frequency of the vibrating body of the instrument interact with one another in such a way as to produce a new, unwanted beating tone that occurs simultaneously with a note being played. This beating isn't really a new note being introduced, it is just the sound of beating that occurs when two notes of nearly (but not the same) pitch are played together. For example, a note played on an instrument may modulate its volume excessively - this is often the result of a wolf tone. It is often a distracting and thus unwanted phenomenon; one that string players have been plagued with for centuries. One attribute of "better" instruments is that the wolf tone lies between two semitones and thus rarely becomes much of a problem so long as the instrument is tuned to proper pitch. Nevertheless many fine instruments do have problems with wolf tones. Often players can tame it by placing a few grams of mass on a string between the bridge and tailpiece in a position where the resonant frequency matches the wolf tone. The mass makes it harder for the string to interact with the resonance, which reduces the effect. Different string gauges sometimes help, and even different playing techniques can help. Sometimes wolf tones will seem to come and go with changes in humidity and so forth. This is simply due to the instrument's resonant frequency changing slightly due to differing atmospheric conditions.
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And found a really good audio example here at about 1min in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeU9xrUybMc&NR=1

that's nuts.
 
hahaahah

708353ktyzp004l8.gif
 
Jase2677 said:
Isn't wolfing when you forget to shut the correct valve on a submarine toilet and instead of flushing, you end up shooting **** all over your chest and face??
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I sure hope not. :mrgreen:
 
Wolf tones should not happen with fractal units because if you remember the story of
Little-Red-Riding Hood from your infant days ;) The Big Bad Wolfe was killed by the wood man
WITH AN AXE' :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
When setting pickup height keep in mind that some pickups have stronger magnets than others. Stronger magnet, bigger pull, longer distance needed.
 
Most noticeable on single coils since their magnets are typically significantly stronger. Pickups too close can result in "stratitis" which is described as creating a fake harmonic frequency node on a string resulting in a string sounding dissonant even when played alone. Basically, the string/note will sound like its out of tune with itself. Quite unmusical.
 
Dinkledorf said:
Most noticeable on single coils since their magnets are typically significantly stronger. Pickups too close can result in "stratitis" which is described as creating a fake harmonic frequency node on a string resulting in a string sounding dissonant even when played alone. Basically, the string/note will sound like its out of tune with itself. Quite unmusical.
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hmmm that's interesting, thanks
 
I follow this guide, posted on LPF forum:

Ok... we've been over this in a few threads here recently so I decided to see if I could record some examples of Roy's method of adjusting pickups. I use this method now to adjust my guitars and it works so fine. I hope this will of some benefit to some of you... YMMV. You might have your own preferred method of setting up pickups and that's great, this is just another way to do it that I've found works very well.

Disclaimer: This method of adjusting pickups is per Roy of RS Guitarworks. In a previous thread here's Roy's quote on what this is all about:

"My best suggestion is to dial them in with the following steps on an amp set with medium gain (or a good clean Tube amp).

start with the pickups very slightly below each ring and starting with the bridge pickup hit the high E open and raise the pickup slowly listening to the note decay. As you come up you will hear a point where the end of the note starts to bloom (or the end of the note starts to get louder as ) keep raising the pickup till you hear that bloom stop then back it back down till it starts again. At that point go to the low E and do the same thing. When the bridge is done move on to the neck listening to the same bloom then you are done. I have never believed there was a magic measurement for pickups, but I'm a firm believer that every pickup has a magic sweet spot."

I used two different guitars for this, a Historic LP and a 1962 ES-335 with PAF's. The "medium" gain amp is a '58 5E3 Deluxe. The amp's turned down low, volume's just before 3, the tone's on 10. At this volume, with this amp, the overtones are pretty apparent and there's little additional overtones being added by the amp from using more volume.
Any good small tube amp will work for this, it needs to be set kinda bright to hear the "bloom/overtone" thing Roy's talking about.

Listen for the end of the note decay. When the strings are too far away, you won't here any change to the sound... it'll just die off in a linear fashion.
As the pickup gets closer to being in the right spot, as per "factory settings" you'll begin to here the tone "bloom" and a harmonic will appear as the note decays.
When the pickup is in the "sweet spot", you'll hear the note changing from the pure tone to the overtone, it's rather subtle but you should be able to hear it clearly... hopefully!

Disclaimer #2! This "bloom" thing happens toward the end of the note's decay... it's subtle and you probably won't hear it with regular computer speakers. Try using headphones or maybe you'll have a set of monitors, for recording, hooked up to your computer.
If you don't hear anything, download the clips and burn 'em to a CD for home audio listening... that'll definitely work.

Ok, there's two clips for each guitar, one clip per pickup. I'll put the times in for:

"Pickup too low"... this is the sound of the pickup even with the rings on both sides of the pickup. For the 335, the "low" setting is 3/32+" away from the strings.

"Factory"... this setting is the 1/16" away from the depressed E strings. You'll hear some "bloom" and the overtone here. It's not a bad way to go for starters and will usually always get you in the ballpark

"Sweet Spot"... this is the sound from finding the most "bloom" and harmonics that I found in each guitar.

After the three separate tone samples for each setting, I play a little with the pickup in the "sweet spot"...just noodling around the fretboard to show how the guitar sounds with the pickups setup right.
A Deluxe sounds pretty bright/thin and not so good at this setting, so get ready for that. You'll also hear the filaments in the tubes rattling, they do that.

Here's the samples:

LP Bridge:
Low: 0 - 1:02
Factory: 1:07 - 2:10
Sweet: 2:12 - Playing starts at 3:08
http://h1.ripway.com/GJB58/LP bridge sweet spot.mp3


LP Neck:
Low: 0 - :41
Factory: 0:42 - 1:29
Sweet: 1:30 - Playing starts at 2:12
http://h1.ripway.com/GJB58/LP neck sweet spot.mp3


335 Bridge:
Low: 0 - 0:42
Factory: 0:43 -1:30
Sweet: 1:31 - Playing at 2:22
http://h1.ripway.com/GJB58/335 Bridge sweet.mp3


335 Neck:
Low: 0 - 0:47
Factory: 0:48 - 1:28
Sweet: 1:29 - Playing at 2:14
http://h1.ripway.com/GJB58/335 neck sweet spot.mp3


On the neck pickup clips of each guitar I play there for awhile and then start moving the selector switch around to give you all three tones... remember I'm just noodling around, so I apologize for the playing!

Here's what the amp sounds like turned up to some sort of "standard" recording level... volume's around 7, tone's all the way up. Two mics on the speaker instead of one (Royer 121 on the left and a AEA R92 on the right) and a room mic as well... sorry the guitar's a bit out of tune here .
http://h1.ripway.com/GJB58/Jr Deluxe jam 2.mp3
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Exellent guide but I want to add 2 points because I missed them as well at first read:

- After you find "the blooming/overtone sweet spot" on the high and low E you want to lower the pickups a little so the "sweet spot" will move down the neck.
I spend most of my playing between the 5th fret and the 12th fret so I want most of the "bloom" to happen
in that region.

- Once you are done with the high and low E strings, you will proceed to adjust the pole screws on the other 4 strings to bring their "bloom" to the same region.


;)
 
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