Thanks for starting this thread Chet! Yes, that article was pretty basic stuff but ,being a novice like me it did give me some basic info. I would like to learn much more though and you and the rest can (slowly) teach me.

I've always set my pickup lower than Fender suggested setup.

In contrast to Jimi, it always seemed to me that Stevie Vaughan had the pickups quite high on some of his Strats.



Maybe it's just me...

If I remember correctly SRV had his action higher too.

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Chet Feathers

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I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.

Yes, that is true that he prefered higher action, that would certainly explain. I'll have to pause one dvd some time and check for close up and pay attention. There's just so little close up quality pictures.

My El Mocambo copy is in pretty good shape, I'll check number one next time.

Of course I'll have to check Jimi's too.

Excellent!

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I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.

I've been a longtime low setter. My vintage noiseless are flush to the guard so theres only polepiece difference. My Scn's i set 1/8th up from the plate. I do set the bridge pickup to balanced volume from that though.

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No no and no

From this interview: http://www.tangledupinblues.com/setup.html

"String height
I measured the distance from the underside of the strings to the top of the fret at the 12th fret on both E strings. Rene Martinez describes “I set up all of Stevie’s the same: 5/64" on the treble E string and 7/64" at the bass E.”

Pickup height
As a reference point I laid a precision steel straightedge along the frets for making the measurement. Stevie’s pickups were raised fairly high. I measured from the straightedge to the polepiece tops: On the treble side, the bridge pickup touched the straightedge, and the middle almost touched the straightedge, and the neck pickup was 1/16" away. The bass side measured 1/32" at the bridge pickup, 1/16" at the middle, and 1/32" at the neck.

So I guess this negates the nickle concept?

I'm still making adjustments to the pups on my 67RI Hotrod (aka the forum project) they are much lower than the stock pups were but nowhere near flush with the pick guard. I'll drop them down some more and report my findings.

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You can still start with the nickel method and make adjustments down from there.

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I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.

+1

I did it awhile ago, back when I was a lurker on this forum. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised. My main guitar at the time was a Les Paul Custom and I dropped them down to just above the plastic ring, leaving the treble pickup somewhat higher. It definitely improved those warm LP tones you can get, but the real change came when I bought my Tele. The guy who owned it previously had them set almost touching the strings and I dropped them down quite significantly. It instantly removed any unpleasantness associated with the "icepick" bridge pickup, and made the neck pickup much warmer without eliminating the distinctive Tele tone. A good call, to be sure.

Also, for those interested, SRV was notorious for having both a very, very high action and strings like tree trunks. A lot of the best guitar players I know -- one of them, Jordan Cook, is a local boy who is in the process of making it big and played with BB when he was 17 -- also tend to set their actions high. It's probably because they don't need to worry about playability as much as tone...they're already great players and can make anything sing, and a high action makes tone much better.

You from saskatoon?

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

I lived there for my teenage years, but moved away in '90

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

It's a good city! I actually went to school with Jordan, and he's a great guy. I'm still living here, finishing up my degree at the U of S. Where are you at these days?

I live in Calgary now. Moved around a lot

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Calgary's a good place too, and I'm sure your weather is better than ours. It's hovering around 0 C this morning and there's still a foot of snow!