Adjusting The Height Of Your Electric Guitar Pickups

Before you begin to adjust your pickups make certain that your guitar is properly strung and tuned to the correct pitch.

The measurements in this article are only a guideline, you may choose to adjust or change these measurements to suite your own playing style, and sound.

Due to the large amount of guitar pickups that are available and because of the various playing styles, any adjustments that you make should be to your own guitar, and adjusted to suit your own unique playing style.

Keep in mind that the magnetic field that is generated by the pickup’s pole pieces on a guitar pickup like a DiMarzio X2N that is designed to push tube amps into total overdrive are much more powerful than a humbucking pickup or typical PAF pickup, as a result you may observe quite a significant difference in the amount of space between the strings and pickups once you finish adjusting them.

Begin adjusting your pickups by making the simplest adjustment first. Fret your guitar strings one by one on the very last fret and check to see if there is a space of 3/16" to 1/4" of an inch between the pickup’s pole pieces and the strings. This is a standard measurement and the way that most guitars are set up at the factory. If you are a power shredder that continually picks the guitar strings with a lot of strength you should adjust your pickups a little lower to avoid hitting your pickups with your pick. You can also alter your pickups so that one side of your guitar’s pickup is higher than the other side. This is useful because the magnetic field around the Low E will affect that string in a different way than the field that is produce under the High E string.

Now that you have an idea of what the standard distances form the strings to the pickup’s pole pieces is, it is time to plug your guitar into an amplifier. Play your guitar with the tone and volume knobs set at half way and set your amplifier were you would usually set it. Set the switch on your guitar to the neck pickup and begin picking notes the way you usually pick and make sure that you are the same distance from your amplifier as you would usually be. Its essential that you do everything as you would usually do when you play. Concentrate on the tone and sound coming that is coming out of your out of your amplifier.

Now pick a note and adjust the height of the pickup, so that it is closer to the strings by turning the screws. Listen closely to the difference in tone and sound, you may have to pick the note many times as you do this. As the pickup gets closer to the guitar strings the tone will change, if the pickup gets to close to the strings you will hear what is generally referred to as a wolf tone that sounds muddy and overdriven. If that happens lower the pickup back down until you find the sweet spot. If you lower the pickups too much you will get a weak output or soft tone. When you have found this spot leave the pickup there and play your guitar for a while before you move onto the next pickup on your guitar just to make certain that this is the tone and sound you are looking for from this pickup. Now move on to the middle pickup assuming that you have a middle pickup and repeat this procedure. If your guitar only has two pickups on it switch to the second one omitting the middle position on your switch.

While the information here is valid there are many other things that affect the sound and tone of a pickup, with some professional guidance there are many ways that you can take inexpensive pickups and greatly improve upon them without spending a fortune. My $250.00 guitars play and sound just as good as my $850.00 guitars.

If you do not know very much about fine-tuning guitars then I recommend that you get professional advice from an experienced Luther. Your only other option is to learn by trial and error.

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