Gibson Electric Guitar Pickup Height

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.

Gibson electric guitar pickup height.

Crank em high and let em fry might sum up some players attitudes toward pickup height adjustment. 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. From its inaugural appearance in 1958 the gibson es 335 set an unmatched standard. Gibson s calibrated t type humbucking pickups are paired with our hand wired control assembly.

In the 1950s it was 1 6 millimeters for both pickups which may have reflected the lower output unpotted standard of the day. 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. Fret high e at 22nd fret distance for both pickups should be 3 32. Fender for instance suggests 6 64ths to 4 64ths for their standard single coil pickups.

The result is that. 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. Product registration customer service repair and restoration report counterfeits serial number faq gibson guitar specs 2015 2019 dealer resource center locate a.

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. Your magnetic field floats above the pickup and if your strings are out of the field you won t get a rich full tone. 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. Setting your pickup height too low would cause your pickup not to be optimized for your guitar.

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