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how sensitive are pickups to adjustment?

#21
Ok so mid adjusting these guys I got the chorus sound to go away, they sound really really good. But I wonder if I can make them sound better. I think that largely it doesn’t really increase like the bass or treble response on these pickups to raise or lower them, it just sorta makes them louder. They’re humbuckers and I’ve heard adjusting humbuckers doesn’t really change tonal response as much as it does volume. I am very happy with the sound now and I think a lot of my adjusting them has been trying to recapture a sound I remember. I don’t think they’re super sensitive to adjusting in terms of the bass or treble response but I do think it impacts the volume. I got the bridge and neck pickup sounding really really good right now. If it is a super sensitive thing and that risk hours of work finding something I’m happy with again maybe it’s not worth adjusting.

I’m not sure any thoughts?
 
#22
Mrtoodamnsabre said:
Ok so mid adjusting these guys I got the chorus sound to go away, they sound really really good. But I wonder if I can make them sound better. I think that largely it doesn’t really increase like the bass or treble response on these pickups to raise or lower them, it just sorta makes them louder. They’re humbuckers and I’ve heard adjusting humbuckers doesn’t really change tonal response as much as it does volume. I am very happy with the sound now and I think a lot of my adjusting them has been trying to recapture a sound I remember. I don’t think they’re super sensitive to adjusting in terms of the bass or treble response but I do think it impacts the volume. I got the bridge and neck pickup sounding really really good right now. If it is a super sensitive thing and that risk hours of work finding something I’m happy with again maybe it’s not worth adjusting.

I’m not sure any thoughts?
Click to expand...
It all goes back to your ears. According to them, they sound really really good. Job done.
 
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#23
iiipopes said:
The signal that a string induces to a pickup varies as the square of the distance the string is from the pickup, not linearly. So depending on the pickup, a little bit of adjustment can go a long way. Every pickup has a "sweet spot" that the distance the string is from the pickup produces the best tone. EMG's, for example, have low gauss magnets, so the manufacturer prefers the pickups to be as close as possible to the strings without interference. Other pickups that have strong magnets may need to be adjusted with more space between the pickups and the strings, especially since too strong a magnetic field can pull the string out of tune, what the guitar players know as "Stratitis," and not allow the instrument to intonate properly.

Bottom line: yes, a little adjustment can make a lot of difference. That's why pickups have adjustment screws. Experiment with different heights to get the best tone out of the pickups.
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^^This^^ a whole bunch. Out of the bunch of basses that I own, there are some with pickups that are... relatively tolerant of height variations. There are some - most of them, actually - with pickups that only work best within a fairly narrow range of adjustment. And, I have a couple - like, say, the '94 Gretsch Broadkaster - with pickups that sound like crap unless their height is just.. exactly... right. Literally a hair's thickness either way. After I replaced the petrified rubber and little scraps of wood that Gretsch used to shim them to the correct height after I bought it? It took me an entire week to get them set right again. The pickup's "height adjustment" screws have almost no travel at all; shims do 99% of the work. I live in fear of having to go through that ordeal again...:cool:
 
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#24
GIBrat51 said:
^^This^^ a whole bunch. Out of the bunch of basses that I own, there are some with pickups that are... relatively tolerant of height variations. There are some - most of them, actually - with pickups that only work best within a fairly narrow range of adjustment. And, I have a couple - like, say, the '94 Gretsch Broadkaster - with pickups that sound like crap unless their height is just.. exactly... right. Literally a hair's thickness either way. After I replaced the petrified rubber and little scraps of wood that Gretsch used to shim them to the correct height after I bought it? It took me an entire week to get them set right again. The pickup's "height adjustment" screws have almost no travel at all; shims do 99% of the work. I live in fear of having to go through that ordeal again...:cool:
Click to expand...
Yeah I’m in a weird spot with it, I like what I have set in, but I’m not sure if I can do better, sometimes things sound different when we’re trying to hear the things we don’t like in a tone and you gotta reset your brain. I think I’ll rest on it for a week. It’s not super different from the second time the tech set it up, and I feel like I can get the tone from the first time the tech set it up by just opening up the volume knob a little more. It would be mostly splitting hairs. I’m not sure if I remember what it sounded like as better than it was lol. I just keep thinking “1/32 more...”


And the moments I’m not playing sound engineer and just writing music, I’m having a great time with how it sounds and how that sound feels
 
#25
As has been said all pickups are a little different but in general on the P/J basses I predominantly play I try and get the pickups as close as I can without causing issues, I find that the closer you get the pickups the more bitey and aggressive the tone tends to be and generally I tend to set them around 2.5mm ish from the string with the string fretted at the last fret but a lot of people would set them further away than this
 
#26
iiipopes said:
The signal that a string induces to a pickup varies as the square of the distance the string is from the pickup, not linearly.
Click to expand...


This is correct and it results in a difference that is very noticeable by ear.

For reference, Fender recommends 2mm to 3mm string height above jazz pickups. Because of the exponential variation in field strength with distance, lowering the strings from 3mm to 2mm results in a signal that's more than twice as strong.
 
#27
Yeah I own two musicman sabres, ones got 1979 pickups the other is the 2014 reprint of the ernie ball era pickups, the 2014 electronics sound more bitey and aggressive when they’re super close but weirdly the 79 pickups only sound bigger deeper and warmer when they’re closer, but the 79 pickups definitely Cant be put as close as the 2014 electronics can cause the size/strength of those magnets.


New question. Have been having fun adjusting pickups and I’m going to replace the adjustment screws, anything I should worry about, if the thread is slightly bigger or smaller am I going to ruin the holes?
 
#28
Mrtoodamnsabre said:
New question. Have been having fun adjusting pickups and I’m going to replace the adjustment screws, anything I should worry about, if the thread is slightly bigger or smaller am I going to ruin the holes?
Click to expand...

Actually regardless of weather the new pickup screws are an exact match in terms of diameter and nature/size of the thread or not it would be a good idea to plug out the old adjustment screw holes to with absolutely certainty secure the new screws get a proper grip.

This will be very easy to do, just use 1 wooden toothpick per hole with one end of each toothpick smeared in a layer wood glue, approximately the depth of the screw hole, and then squeeze those toothpick ends down in each their screw hole, break or cut off the remaining length of the toothpicks so that they approximately flush with the surface of the screw holes, eventual dry off excess glue with a moist cloth, before mounting the pickup again with the new screws and adjusting to taste (you don't have to wait for the glue to dry, in fact it is better if you do it while the glue is still wet, as that will harden the threads for the screws in the wood and make them less prone to strip and give the new screws a better grip).

I have done this every time I have swapped pickups on my bass, and it works really well.

Note that you might need to slightly pull the pickups up from their cavities to get proper access to the mounting screw holes, but you should be able to do this without having to actually uninstall and reinstall the pickups entirely, it's really just for the sake of having better access to the screw holes while you plug them, and the pickup wires ought to have enough excess slack to allow for the pickup to be lifted up from the cavity and slided a bit to the side to make sufficient room.
 
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#29
It all depends what sounds good to you, but I'd offer two suggestions:

Do this with new (or close to new) strings to avoid sonic issues from very old, crusty strings, and to avoid playability issues, do the clearance adjustments while pressing down the strings at the last fret to insure you'll never ground the strings onto the pickups.
 

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