P-bass pickup height

[bassybass]

I know this is all a matter of preference, and a "use your ears" kind of thing, but where do you guys have your P-bass PUs set as far as distance to the strings? I have a franken P with some Duncans in it, and also a MIA Fender. I like the sound of the Duncan bass, but I'm guessing these pickups are a good deal hotter than the Fender's. If I dig in fingerstyle with thumb anchored on the PU it seems I can actually cause it to clip, or in other words it spits out such a hot jolt it clips pretty much whatever I'm plugged into. On the Fender I can dig in and not have the same result, it sounds sound like . . digging in. I will try lowering them some to see if it mellows it out but I don't wanna mess with the tone (I'm a dummy about electronics and setups). It's definitely a LOUD passive bass, so I guess it can't hurt to calm it down a notch. Is there a point where you can lower PUs too much that they won't be functioning properly? Just roughly eyeballing it I'd say the PUs are a little more than 1/8" away from the strings in the center, just a tad more to the outside G and E string sides. It was set up by a pro so I'm wary of messing with it too much.

[Alcyon]

I had to lower the bass side of my p (Fender MIJ '93) quite a bit because it kept clipping the input of my Kustom... No problems now. Just take a screwdriver and wind it down a bit.

[Lizooki]

Pup height on P an J's.

2.8mm E string
2 mm G string

Here's a Fender link bass set-up

FWIW - Most new basses don't seem to be set-up that way.
It looks to me like the A & D ends of the pups are a lot closer that the E & G.

Matt

[bassybass]

Originally Posted by Lizooki

FWIW - Most new basses don't seem to be set-up that way.
It looks to me like the A & D ends of the pups are a lot closer that the E & G.

Matt

yeah I had a pro setup on both these two Ps, and they both came back that way--the inner part of the pickups, under the A & D are higher than the outside G and E sides. I seem to think EVERY P I've ever examined has been like this from what I recall. I'm just gonna lower it all a few turns and see---it's prolly just that these SDs are hot, and I'm playing harder than the setup man expected.

[Widdershins]

Originally Posted by Lizooki

It looks to me like the A & D ends of the pups are a lot closer that the E & G.

Yeah, it's supposed to be that way. Your strings follow the radius of the fretboard & so should the pickups; otherwise the poles will be farther away from the middle strings.

[therex]

do you think that pup height in a p bass could affect the buzz? my bass tech says that it somehow does, but what do you think guys

[Nyarlathotep]

The top of the pups on my P/J (which I restrung to DGCF from BEAD today ) match the top of the frets on the board. Freaking amazing sound, and no distortion from the pups either. They are passive tho.