Before adjusting anything ensure your guitar is strung up correctly and tuned to proper pitch!
In this particular tutorial measurements are used more as guidelines and not as solid facts. The large number of electric guitar pickups available on the market and individual’s playing styles these adjustments should be made to suit them as opposed to some arbitrary “perfect value”.
It is important to understand that the magnetic fields of many high output pickups designed to overdrive the front end of an amplifier – such as a DiMarzio X2N – can be far greater in strength than a say, a “standard” PAF pickup. You may therefore notice quite a correspondingly larger pickup-to-string spacing after this adjustment procedure is completed. This is not always the case – such as with EMGs for example – however is important to understand.
Before plugging your guitar in and firing up your amp, start out by making the easiest of adjustments. Fret your strings one at a time at the last fret and ensure that the polepieces of the pickups are about 3/16″ to 1/4″ (4mm – 13mm) away from the bottom of each string.
If you’re a player who attacks the strings with a lot of force you may want them a little towards the further of these two measurements. This will help avoid hitting the pickups with your guitar pick whilst playing.
You will also notice at this point that you can adjust one side of the pickup higher than the other which comes in handy since the magnetic field around the thinner high strings effects those differently than the field under the thicker low strings.
Now that you have given yourself a base to work from, plug in and power up just like you normally would play with your Volume and Tone knobs adjusted on the guitar about half way but your amp settings where you normally would have them. Switch to your neck pickup and strike notes the way you normally play and from the distance you would normally position yourself away from your amp.
It is important to do everything in a position you would normally play in. Focus your attention to the sound and tone coming out of your speaker or cab.
Strike a note and turn the height adjustment screws raising both sides of the pickup closer to the strings. Listen to the change in sound over all of the strings. You will have to strike notes several times while doing this and at differing levels of power but you get the idea….just be consistent!
As polepieces are advanced towards the strings, the tone and dynamics will alter. Too close to the strings, you will notice unpleasant artifacts such as “wolf tones” (the pull of the magnetic field interacting with the strings causing unwanted overtones), an unpleasantly muddy overdriven sound and/or a lack of playing dynamics and sensitivity.
If that occurs back the pickup downwards until you find the sweet spot. Ensure that you balance the pickup at both sides to get the best sound from both the low and the high string sides.
Once you have found this, set down your screwdriver and take a quiet break! A common problem called “listener fatigue” can cause your ears to lose a degree of sensitivity causing subjective listening errors and overcompensating your adjustments to counter.
Coming back, play for a little while to be sure that this is the sound and tone you want from this position before switching over to the next pickup and repeating the process. Make sure your guitar is only outputting one pickup rather than being in any of the combined pickup positions!
Once you’re done making all of these adjustments wipe your guitar down with a clean soft cloth and have a nice day!
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