Gibson Electric Guitar Pickup Height

The gibson es 335 dot is the cornerstone of the gibson es line up.

Gibson electric guitar pickup height.

Humbuckers can run a little closer to the strings gibson recommends 1 16th of an inch for the bridge pickup and 3 32nds of an inch for the neck because their magnets aren t as powerful as single coils. Fret high e at 22nd fret distance for both pickups should be 3 32. Setting the pickup height too high can cause interference with your guitar strings 2 setting pickup height too low. In the 1950s it was 1 6 millimeters for both pickups which may have reflected the lower output unpotted standard of the day.

Crank em high and let em fry might sum up some players attitudes toward pickup height adjustment. Gibson s calibrated t type humbucking pickups are paired with our hand wired control assembly. It s a great help to use a capo on the top fret so you don t have to press the strings. From its inaugural appearance in 1958 the gibson es 335 set an unmatched standard.

Fender for instance suggests 6 64ths to 4 64ths for their standard single coil pickups. In most cases the neck pickup is positioned a little lower than the bridge pickup because the broader vibrational arch of the plucked string over the neck pickup which is closer to the. Gibson s engineers recommend a 1 6 millimeter distance between the strings and the pickups for the bridge pickup and 2 4 millimeters for the neck pickup. Bridge pickup should be 3 64 i think the 3 64 is a typo it should be 3 32 neck pickup should be 4 32.

Fret low e at 22nd fret and measure pickup height from underside of string to point on pickup closest to string. The pearloid dot inlay rosewood fingerboard on a hand rolled rounded c mahogany neck remind players where it all started. Any adjustment of pickup height in two pickup guitars needs to give some consideration to balancing the output between the bridge and neck pickups too. Your magnetic field floats above the pickup and if your strings are out of the field you won t get a rich full tone.

Setting your pickup height too low would cause your pickup not to be optimized for your guitar. But there s a lot more to it than that and many guitarists will just as often prefer the sound of their electric guitars with the pickups lowered slightly rather than raised higher.