How are your pickup heights set? Slant/straight?

bluesky636 · **Posted:** Thu Aug 18, 2011 9:31 pm

I've been an advocate of the Greasebucket tone circuit for some time now. I have it on my Strat (SCN pickups), 52 RI Tele (Seymour Duncan Vintage Stack Noiseless pickups), and Squire "Nocaster" (GFS NEOVIN Vintage Noiseless pickups).

And yeah, all my pickups slant up from bass to treble.

DetroitBlues · **Joined:** Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:58 am **Posts:** 2187

windwalker9649 wrote:

So you prefer them slanted? Yeah, I do my heights by ear, usually after setting them tob factory spec as a start. But I realize that with pickups with vintage staggered poles, slanted up towards the high E is actually somewhat flat. Though there bobbin i is slanted, with the pole pieces on the low E,A &D strings being raised, they actually balance out.
I had a set of Rio Grande Vintage Tallboys on before, a couple years ago. They had the pole pieces flush with the top of the pickup, but I can't remember how I had them set. I'm curious to how people with pickups with the same straight pole pieces have theirs set.

I also use Area 58/61 pickups that use Alnico II pickups with an EXTREMELY low magnetic pull. So I have my neck/bridge pickups set "relatively" high, and I mean relative to the middle. With these pups, they get more punchy and compressed than typical single coils. So I can have my amp set for the edge of brakup, and on those 2 pickups, it'll drive the amp into overdrive, and I can throw it to the middle one for clean.

Also the tone control I wired up makes the bridge pickup so much more useful than with a normal tone control. I actually use the bridge pickup w/ the tone between 3-6, and get a pretty nasty sounding rhythm tone out of it.

Any flat polepieces out there?

Not many guitars produced anymore have the flat pole pieces. As for where to start, I actually start off with the pups almost flat to the pickguard and work my way up from there.

windwalker9649 · **Posted:** Fri Aug 19, 2011 6:33 am

DetroitBlues wrote:

windwalker9649 wrote:

So you prefer them slanted? Yeah, I do my heights by ear, usually after setting them tob factory spec as a start. But I realize that with pickups with vintage staggered poles, slanted up towards the high E is actually somewhat flat. Though there bobbin i is slanted, with the pole pieces on the low E,A &D strings being raised, they actually balance out.
I had a set of Rio Grande Vintage Tallboys on before, a couple years ago. They had the pole pieces flush with the top of the pickup, but I can't remember how I had them set. I'm curious to how people with pickups with the same straight pole pieces have theirs set.

I also use Area 58/61 pickups that use Alnico II pickups with an EXTREMELY low magnetic pull. So I have my neck/bridge pickups set "relatively" high, and I mean relative to the middle. With these pups, they get more punchy and compressed than typical single coils. So I can have my amp set for the edge of brakup, and on those 2 pickups, it'll drive the amp into overdrive, and I can throw it to the middle one for clean.

Also the tone control I wired up makes the bridge pickup so much more useful than with a normal tone control. I actually use the bridge pickup w/ the tone between 3-6, and get a pretty nasty sounding rhythm tone out of it.

Any flat polepieces out there?

Not many guitars produced anymore have the flat pole pieces. As for where to start, I actually start off with the pups almost flat to the pickguard and work my way up from there.

Yeah, the Rio Grande Tallboys were the only flat pole pieces Ive seen. I find the staggered are unnecessary anymore. The claim is they did it to match Fenders really round 7 1/4" radius, but with the flatter fretboards, I dont find them as necessary. Though i do set the adjustable pole pieces on humbuckers. I start by making them ALMOST the radius of the fretboard; if its a 10", i'll set them to 12. Then set them so the strings are balanced when i slowly rake the strings. Except for my main strat, I like to keep them farther away from therecomended distance, it gives it a more open sound, especially the neck pickup of a humbucker.

windwalker9649 · **Posted:** Fri Aug 19, 2011 6:47 am

ozrv wrote:

Windwalker....Thank you very much for taking time out of you day to share such fantastic info, I have looked into this style of Grease bucket before, I will take you advice and have one of these installed. I use Nickel wound strings, They are a lot warmer huh but still bright.... I will flatten the pick up as soon as i get home also...I will tell you how it worked out for me at least with the strings and pickup angle tomorrow...Thanks again Windwalker talk soon...

Happy I could help. I dont think Fender actually sells a Greasebucket seperate. Like I said, I didnt even know what I was using was a Greasebucket. If they do, it's probably way more $$ than it should be. All you need (besides for the capacitor you'd already use) is an additional capacitor, and a resistor. About $3 in parts, for good parts. I'll PM you the instructions.

windwalker9649 · **Posted:** Fri Aug 19, 2011 6:56 am

bluesky636 wrote:

I've been an advocate of the Greasebucket tone circuit for some time now. I have it on my Strat (SCN pickups), 52 RI Tele (Seymour Duncan Vintage Stack Noiseless pickups), and Squire "Nocaster" (GFS NEOVIN Vintage Noiseless pickups).

And yeah, all my pickups slant up from bass to treble.

SCN's would be the type of pickup that works best with the tone circuit, because of the hot bridge pickup. Like i said, i use Dimarzio Area 58/58/61 pickups. The output of the 61 on my bridge isnt much more than the neck pickup. SO when I roll down the tone knob, there's a bit of a volume drop. You wouldnt notice it as much on a guitar with a hotter bridge pickup. But this is really not a big deal, just have your guitar set so the volume at 7 is your "unity" volume, and when you go to the bridge turn it to 10, or use a boost, or something to compensate.
Next to the switch i installed to turn my bridge pickup on independant of the 5-way, so i can have neck/bridge, or neck/middle/bridge (which i only use when tuning); the tone control kit is the most useful electronics mod i've done to the strat. I use my bridge pickup probably 5 times more now. Like i said, when im using overdrive, i now use the bridge pickup for rhythm, something you couldnt normally do with a single coil.

tbazzone · **Posted:** Fri Aug 19, 2011 7:50 am

I have all my P/Us lowered even with the pick guard

windwalker9649 · **Posted:** Fri Aug 19, 2011 8:05 am

tbazzone wrote:

I have all my P/Us lowered even with the pick guard

Must be very....airy, acoustic-like. I never had them set that low, does it affect note seperation?

windwalker9649 · **Posted:** Fri Aug 19, 2011 8:09 am

I did a setup for a guy who works down in the warehouse at work. He's just started to learn, on a 'Starcaster". This guitar, without a doubt, is the biggest piece of junk ive come across. When they put in the spring claw (which is a really narrow, thin piece of metal, that used what appeared to be sheet rock screws), they screwed one of the 'bolts' at an angle. It caused the claw to buckle because of the tension of the scew as it went deeper into the body at the angle.
The original factory setup was so bad, that the pickup heights were set (very roughly) in the opposite way than they should have. The neck pickup was the hightest, followed by the middle, then the bridge was the lowest. I dont know how QC, if there is one, could let that go with the way the claw was put in, or the pickup set the way they are.

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How are your pickup heights set? Slant/straight?

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