deke Posted September 24, 2016 Share Posted September 24, 2016 Perhaps most of you are not as stupid as I am, but I had to share this. For over a year I have been struggling with getting guitar sounds I like from almost everything - Logic, Amplitube, Guitar Rig, S-Gear... I have a few guitars, but mainly use a Les Paul with my home studio. The other day I read something about pickup height, checked my settings and raised my pickups about 1/16th of an inch to be "in spec." Holy Cow what a difference!!! EVERYTHING sounds better, but especially S-Gear which was already my favorite, but now it is amazing. Amp models, effects, cabinets. mic choices... I was missing out on all of it. A while back I put in a new nut and while that was an improvement, pickup height was more dramatic. I can't stop raving about how great this is and how dumb I was to gloss over a basic 101 setup issue. You can easily find your guitar's pickup height spec online and then 3 minutes with a ruler and a screwdriver is all you need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basils Posted September 25, 2016 Share Posted September 25, 2016 Great post, one of those things many don't know. Aside from the height of the pickup itself, many pickups have individually adjustable magnets or poles. Some magnets are strong enough that if they are set to high they can actually dampen the strings. Specs can usually be dug up for individual pickups, but there is a little voodoo involved too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deke Posted December 2, 2016 Author Share Posted December 2, 2016 Hey basils, I missed your reply. You are absolutely right that you can adjust individual poles and there is an art to this, but even the clueless like me can make a huge improvement with the overall height adjustment. I think some people are afraid to mess with their guitars. I have been forcing myself to learn to adjust everything. It took me 20 years, but we didn't have YouTube back then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted December 2, 2016 Share Posted December 2, 2016 Yes, pickup height definitely makes a difference, but as you said you have to strike the correct balance between a good, solid strong signal (pickup close enough to the string) and making sure the magnets in the pickup don't interfere with the string's vibration (pickup far enough from the string), otherwise you can get all sorts of interesting distortion, and not just dampening. New strings, proper intonation (string length adjustment at the bridge) and a good tuning job also make a huge difference!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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