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11-17-2010, 08:18 PM
|  | Registered User | | Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Baton Rouge | | | Pickup height really DOES matter
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Recently I've been obsessing over how my basses are set-up. Every night for two weeks I've been adjusting truss rods, lowering/heightening bridge saddles, intonating, etc. etc.
Tonight I decided to raise and lower the pickups on my Spector NS4-CR because after I set it up last night, it became apparent that the pickups were not the same distance from the strings as they had originally been. The tone was weaker, more anemic, midrange-less, and had less attack.
WOW! What a difference a few mm's makes. It was almost like playing a new bass. I put some weatherstripping on the bottom of the pickups to raise them higher and set poth the P and J pickups to 3 mm from the strings while depressing the last fret. Originally they had been anywhere from 7 to 9 mm from the strings. I'll be doing the same experiment with the rest of my basses.
Anybody else had a similar revalation with pickup height? Especially with active EMG pickups. |
11-17-2010, 08:24 PM
|  | THIS HAND OF MINE GLOWS WITH AN AWESOME POWER! | | Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: USA; Mitchellville, Maryland | | It's not opinion, it's fact  . The only concern is how much it matters and that, of course, varies from bass to bass.
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11-17-2010, 08:25 PM
|  | Registered User | | | | | it's true, add a little piece of cardboard or foamcore and lower the action a bit and it can make a world of difference, my jazz bass now sounds super sweet |
11-17-2010, 08:26 PM
| | | | not me ive unscrewed my pup completley really close to the string no dfference watsoever |
11-17-2010, 08:28 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Baton Rouge | | Quote:
Originally Posted by mpdd it's true, add a little piece of cardboard or foamcore and lower the action a bit and it can make a world of difference, my jazz bass now sounds super sweet | What's the distance between the pole pieces and strings on your jazz (depressing the last fret, of course)? I have a jazz too and am wondering whether I should raise or lower the pickups first to experiment with tone. |
11-17-2010, 08:30 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Baton Rouge | | Quote:
Originally Posted by bass rocks not me ive unscrewed my pup completley really close to the string no dfference watsoever | May have something to do with the type of pickup. Is it passive? Perhaps the difference is much more drastic for actives. |
11-17-2010, 08:35 PM
| | | | mines active |
11-17-2010, 09:29 PM
| | | | Ive known this for more then 3 decades. Adjusting pups to best sound for you is a basic part of setting up the bass after action adjustments. Glad youve discovered it. You now have a basic tool for improveing the basses voice top taste.
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11-17-2010, 09:38 PM
| | Registered User | | | | | at work can't measure the pickups, but they are custom shop 60's and they definitely have a height sweet spot that i just discovered that works great with my mij 62 reissue, my other basses were always set up by somebody else so i've been tinkering around with the jazz after assembling it from parts i bought on ebay to try and learn some stuff |
11-18-2010, 02:44 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Baton Rouge | | Quote:
Originally Posted by mpdd at work can't measure the pickups, but they are custom shop 60's and they definitely have a height sweet spot that i just discovered that works great with my mij 62 reissue, my other basses were always set up by somebody else so i've been tinkering around with the jazz after assembling it from parts i bought on ebay to try and learn some stuff | I have the exact same pickups, Fender Custom Shop 60's jazz bass pickups (great pickups BTW). I'd really like to know the height you have them set at... |
11-18-2010, 02:47 PM
| | | | I have the same pups. The poles are really high though so during slapping, I get a pop. So I lowered it quite a bit. If I had a pickup cover, I'd probably raise it more. Don't have the exact distances off hand
Last edited by LaBassGuy : 11-18-2010 at 02:57 PM.
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11-18-2010, 02:53 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Greeneville, TN | | | Don't forget;
You can get passive pickups too close to your strings. It will throw off your intonation by way of Electomagnetic pull. Actives don't have this problem, you can get them almost touching. |
11-18-2010, 02:57 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Brookfield, CT | | Quote:
Originally Posted by bass rocks not me ive unscrewed my pup completley really close to the string no dfference watsoever | Maybe your amp won't show the difference. It's quite obvious when using a hifi rig. What do you play through?
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11-18-2010, 02:57 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Baton Rouge | | Quote:
Originally Posted by Thumpin_P Don't forget;
You can get passive pickups too close to your strings. It will throw off your intonation by way of Electomagnetic pull. Actives don't have this problem, you can get them almost touching. | I just learned that last night about active pickups. I have them so close to the strings on my Spector that if I press the string too hard (and I use high tension/low excursion strings to boot) I'll hit the pickup. But it sounds best that way, so, it's staying that way. |
11-18-2010, 03:03 PM
| | | | i find that when i put my bart's too close on my roscoe i lose alot of... nimbleness
ei busier lines get muddy
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11-18-2010, 03:03 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Brookfield, CT | | Quote:
Originally Posted by Thumpin_P Don't forget;
You can get passive pickups too close to your strings. It will throw off your intonation by way of Electomagnetic pull. Actives don't have this problem, you can get them almost touching. | Really depends on the particular pickup, not whether you have an active pre or not. Some active basses have pups with rather strong magnets, such as a MM.
Anyway, you do have to be careful with this, especially with a Jazz bass. Getting the neck pup too close will result in smacking the pup when slapping. A Jazz needs to have the neck pup quite a bit lower than the bridge pup for this reason IME. But due to the differences in string excursion at the two pup locations, the volumes even out.
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11-18-2010, 03:08 PM
|  | Endorsing Curmudgeon: Mal's Kitchen Cruelties ... | | Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Columbia River Gorge | | | Don't forget about 'perceived' volume. Yes, things are louder closer to the string but once you compensate for the additional volume, you like me may find that the sweet spot is somewhat lower ...
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11-18-2010, 03:31 PM
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11-18-2010, 03:57 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Germantown, Louisville KY USA | | Quote:
Originally Posted by Kwesi It's not opinion, it's fact . The only concern is how much it matters and that, of course, varies from bass to bass. | +1
One of my main players has a set of really hot over-wound passive split-p pickups that even with the gain set low and the active switch enabled they used to overdrive my Bassman... to the point that it sounded like my drivers had fractured baskets. I lowered the pups almost flush with the body top and they still sound full and massive but without the distortion.
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11-18-2010, 05:20 PM
|  | ACME, Line 6, SWR, QSC, Greco user/BOSE PAS abuser | | Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: South Texas | | | It DOES.
Different bass, similar tale.
Got a Greco violin bass(solid body, humbucker pickups).
Sounded somewhat lame as set up from Japan so the pickups got raised to match Greco LP clones that live here. Now THAT'S BETTER !!!
Play normally, full sound and body.
Play hard, amp gets pushed into slight distortion...matching my other basses' setups.
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