Proper distance from Pickup to Strings

[aznsk1d]

Hello all. Was wondering if anyone had a good guideline for setting the pickup height relative to the strings? Is there a guideline or is it all trial and error depending on the pickup's output?

I installed Seymour Duncan Basslines Quarter Pounders in my Mexican Fender Jazz and for some reason, the output is quite low still. Playing live the sound guy has my gain all the way up and it's still not cutting through.

Any suggestions? Be it about pickup height or how i might improve my live setup. At the moment i've been going direct to the board which might be part of it. I plan to try passing through my Basspod first and hope that helps.

Thank you.

[debassr]

There's no set formula that I'm aware of. Moving your pups closer to the strings (or vice versa) should increase the volume level - not drastically but some.

[202dy]

Originally Posted by aznsk1d

Hello all. Was wondering if anyone had a good guideline for setting the pickup height relative to the strings? Is there a guideline or is it all trial and error depending on the pickup's output?

I installed Seymour Duncan Basslines Quarter Pounders in my Mexican Fender Jazz and for some reason, the output is quite low still. Playing live the sound guy has my gain all the way up and it's still not cutting through.

Any suggestions? Be it about pickup height or how i might improve my live setup. At the moment i've been going direct to the board which might be part of it. I plan to try passing through my Basspod first and hope that helps.

Thank you.

The spec is 1/8" and 3/32" bass and treble side respectively measured from the top of the pole piece to the bottom of the string.

Since different strings react differently to the magnetic pull of the pickups some people feel this is a starting point and fine tune the output from there. The other thing to take into consideration is how hard you pluck, pick, slap, pluck, or otherwise set the string into motion. It is important to do this as evenly as possible. If not, the output will not be even across each of the strings.

How is the bass linked to the board?

[John Wentzien]

A good place to start is to fret the E and G strings at the last fret. the measurement is 1/8 of an inch from the top of the magnet to the bottom of the outside strings.

Are you using a DI to the input of the board? If not, that would explain the low gain issue.

[Phalex]

It could be a problem with the installation. First off, I'd ohm out the connection from the jack. Just plug in a 1/4" cable and measure the resistance from the tip to the sleeve. It should measure about what the impedance of the PUP is with the volume wide open.

My SPB-3 is way hot. I have it backed off about as far as it will go, and had to raise the action a bit to get the distance where I wanted it.

SPB-3 with low output sounds like something is attenuating the signal between the PUP and the amp, or there could be a problem internal to the PUP.

[John Wentzien]

+1---when you check the impedence, it should be around 12.5 k-ohms.
Use that POD when going to the mixer...

[slyjoe]

Originally Posted by Phalex

It could be a problem with the installation. First off, I'd ohm out the connection from the jack. Just plug in a 1/4" cable and measure the resistance from the tip to the sleeve. It should measure about what the impedance of the PUP is with the volume wide open.

...

Not quite. There are two pickups in parallel. It should read a little less than 1/2 of what an individual pickup is.

I don't know much about these particular pickups, so I'll defer to others here.

It certainly doesn't sound like a pickup height problem.

[aznsk1d]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

[Craig_S]

Originally Posted by 202dy

The spec is 1/8" and 3/32" bass and treble side respectively measured from the top of the pole piece to the bottom of the string.

Only when fretted at the very last fret. Be advised: setting the pickups too close to the strings can make your bass play out of tune. It's best to set the height according to the manufacturers specification.

aznsk1d: I would advise you to re-solder everything. I have had it happen that the pickup connection was not good, even though it looked okay.