Ceramic Pickups Height

Those crappy ceramic bars glued next to steel slug things that come standard in so many strat s and strat copies today cannot really be made to sound good so a trip to the waste basket is the only course of treatment for them.

Ceramic pickups height.

Pickups with alnico v magnets that are voiced more aggressively than pickups with ceramic magnets and alnico ii pickups that sound totally different from other alnico ii pickups definitely exist. But every pickup and guitar manufacturer has their own specifications. Don t forget that we are a seymour duncan authorized dealer. If forced into it we might recommend alnico only because ceramic is the magnet of choice in cheap pickups that do sound bad.

Setting your pickup height too high will cause your magnets to push and pull your strings out of tune. It s a great help to use a capo on the top fret so you don t have to press the strings. Use a good fit screwdriver and record the positions and your ears impressions. Start by setting all of your guitar pickups to 3 32 0 093 2 38mm on the bass side and 2 32 1 16 0 0625 1 98mm on the treble side.

Here s a quick way to tell if this is happening to you. Alnico made pickups have more string pull than ceramic made pickups ceramic pickups can be pretty close to the strings without causing severe hassles just the signal to be oversaturated at strong pick attacks. What should be the determining factor for your guitar s pickup height is what sounds preferable to your playing style. Unfortunately there is no clear winner in our alnico vs ceramic magnets tug of war.

How to adjust set pickup height on a stratocaster for ultimate strat tone. The pickup height is the best and intended variable in adjusting tone and balance. But if you want a nice clean tone go alnico 5. Play the low e string at a high fret 15th fret is a good one to start at.

Tune your guitar and place it on a table or a workbench with a towel or blanket underneath we measure pickup height from the top of the pickup to the bottom of the string while the string is pressed against the highest fret photo 1. Bass side low e 1 16 1 6mm treble side high e 5 64 2 0mm middle pickup. You might hear a warbling sound. The best place to start for pickup height adjustment we ve found 3 32 of an inch 2 381mm is a good place to start.

Ceramic pickups have more bite wich helps get a crunchy sound even if can t afford a real classy tube amp.