The height of your pickups is crucial to your tone. I find that the better the quality of the pickup the more sensitive they are to changes in height. Pickup Height Adjustment is an essential part of your sound, it’s worth finding out a bit about it.
I give measurements at the end of this post but they are just suggestions. The point of writing this is to help you understand the mechanics of what’s happening and to be able to make your own informed choice as to what suits you best. It’s like choosing picks or strings, not everyone likes the same thing and there’s no right or wrong.
Pickup Height Adjustment – what you need to know and some stuff you don’t
Table of Contents
What I mean by pickup height adjustmentt is setting the distance from the top of the pickup to the bottom of the string. It’s like how close to the microphone you’re singing. But it doesn’t just change how loud your guitar is – there’s a lot more to it.
There is, of course, no correct distance from the string so the measurements I’ll give you are a guide and a great place to start. I recommend you set your MrGlyn’s Pickups to these heights when you install them but feel free to tweak them to your own taste after.
In this article I’d like to arm you with a start point, some information and the confidence to find your own correct pickup height.
The principle of Pickup Height Adjustment is, the closer to the strings the pickups are the louder and more dynamic the sound, further away is more compressed and quieter.
So what does that mean?
Imagine someone whispering in your ear. This is like a pickup close to the strings. It not only sounds loud and clear, you can hear every detail of the sound. You are very sensitive to and variation in volume, its very dynamic. Then imagine if the voice is the other side of a room. The voice is less dynamic, you aren’e as sensitive to slight changes in volume, it’s more compressed. Keep that in mind when setting your pickups.
Shall I set the pickup as high as possible?
But there’s another factor. Pickups work by magnetism, if a pickup is too close to the string the magnet will attract the string and cause a strange wobbly sound called a wolf tone. This is much more pronounced with single coil pickups and on the bass strings on the higher frets. These ‘wolf tones’ are sometimes called ‘Stratitis’.
The pickup height is measured from the top of the pickup pole (or cover) to the underside of the string when fretting the highest fret.
Are all pickups the same?
This is where it gets really interesting and I’ll introduce you to a new word – ‘Stratitis’
In general humbuckers can be set closer to the strings than single coil pickups. By single coil pickups I’m thinking mainly of Strats.
A Strat pickup has rod magnets running vertically through them. They’re usually South up, North down. This creates a magnetic pull on the string (it actually makes the string into a temporary magnet but lets not over complicate it).
If the magnet is too close to the string it starts to change the way the string vibrates. There are various names for the sound of this but Stratitis is the common one.
At this point I realise I’m going to have to write hundreds of words unsucessfully trying to explain the sound of this so I’m going to make a video.
The aspect of pickup height I didn’t cover in this video is feel. The guitar reacts quite differently and feels like a different instrument with the pickups are set hight. The extra dynamics and sensitivity can steer you in a direction you might not go in with a pickup set low. Try it, it’s worth finding out which you prefer.
Humbuckers have one coil with North polarity and the other with South and to an extent they cancel each other out so as not to pull on the string in quite the same way. Humbuckers are way less susceptible to stratitis than single coils.
Tele neck pickups
Just a sidenote – Telecaster neck pickups are inside a cover. When adjusting the height just remenber you’re thinking of the distance from the magnet to the string and not from cover to string. The reality is you can usually set them as high as possible without the string hitting the cover. It can make a huge difference to how they perform.
Humbucker pole adjustment
With standard humbuckers there is usually a row of six pole screws that can be height adjusted. It isn’t usually necessary to change the height of these. If you do decide there is an inballance between your individual string volumes the first thing to do is put a fresh set of string on. In nearly every case it’s the strings that are at fault. Adjusting individual poles is a fiddly business and best left alone.
Strat pole height
I’ve come across quite a few Strat pickups where the poles have been pushed in because people have wanted to change the vintage stagger profile. Please don’t try this it will kill the pickup. There are a few lower quality Strat type pickups with plastic bobbins that you can do this on but you need to be 100% sure before trying it. I might save this one for another blog.
P90 height adjusting
For Soapbar P90’s just follow the basic idea of height adjusting. Dogears are a little different – to raise them you need shims – check out this blog post for more info:- P90 Pickup Height – it’s a pretty comprehensive look into P90 height. If you need shims I can supply you with free drawings for 3d printing (you don’t have to buy a pickup), just email and I’ll send it to you. P90’s generally like to be close to the strings.
P Bass Pickup height
Precision basses with the split pair of coils making up one pickup are slightly different to adjust. Treat the two coils as seperate pickups. So set the bass sise coil to be an even distance from the E and A strings and the treble side to be an even distance from the D and G strings. You’ll find the 2 coils wont end up looking flat across all of the strings but they will sound even.
Like with most Fender pickup types be aware of Stratitis (see above) when setting them, it isn’t just a Strat thing.
General principle of pickup height adjustment
There are plenty of pickups out there without recommended heights. The general principle of setting them is to get them as high as possible and listen to how they sound. Be aware of what Stratitis is and sounds like. If you hear stratitis lower them. By ear is the best way. Not all magnets are of the same strength, you’ll be able to get a lot closer to an alnico 3 than an alnico 5.
Once you’ve found your height have a good play of the guitar, do a bit of tweaking and fiddling and a lot of listening.
Pretty soon you’ll find the spot that sounds best for you. Then forget it. You can spend more time fiddling with guitars than playing them. If you’re really not sure about any of this stuff take your guitar to an experienced luthier and trust them.
Pickup Balance
It’s worth having a think about pickup balance. By that I mean the relative volume of each pickup.
Instinctively you might think that having pickups with the same volume but with different tone would be the best. That is true for a lot of situations but it’s worth thinking if that’s true for your situation and not just following the norm.
You may want a louder bridge pickup to push through in a band situation, for instance.
There are a lot of factors to consider whith pickup height adjustment. I think the point I’m trying to make is find what’s right for you by experimenting. It’s easy to adjust pickups so have fun mucking about with them.
Pickup height measurements
Here I have some ideas for pickup heights. Remember, these are not set in stone.
Consider them maximum heights and remember that these are measured from the bottom of the string to the top of the magnet or pole piece when holding down the last fret. They may seem a bit close but the istances will be more when playing around the middle of the board.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcDggiRTQyFec5KAVHsC2xA
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