pickup height

[BrodieBear]

evening.

right, i know vaguely, well pretty much, how to alter the pickup height on my basses, namely a squier standard jazz, and a fender mexi fretless jazz, but my question is, what effect does pickup height have on tone, sound, output level etc? pretty much one of the few grey areas left with my basses, so any info would be much appreciated guys, cheers.

[EADG]

Pickups closer to strings = more output, more volume.

Obviously if you have your neck pup closer than your bridge, you will get more neck tone, and same for the bridge pup.

If you have your pups too close, the strings may hit them when you're slapping, which makes an annoying sound and can mark the surface (this happened to me when I was screwed around with the height for the first time; it can scratch but it doesn't do any real damage as far as I know).

Generally you might want your bridge a little higher than your neck, since the string vibrates less over the bridge pup.

[gjbassist]

If the strings are too close to the pickup the magnets can have a negative effect by slowing the vibration of the strings or even pulling the string down on to the magnet! This depends, of course on the type of pickup and size of the magnets.

[EADG]

If your bass has an online manual it might tell you how high your pickups should be. If not, just lower them and gradually raise them.

[BrodieBear]

that's fantastic guys, thanks very much.

[TheBassman238]

If your bass has an online manual it might tell you how high your pickups should be. If not, just lower them and gradually raise them.

Yes but tiat is in 100% ideal situations, with a perfect streight neck and there recomended string size. I'd do it to there standards but then play with it to get the sound you need and eliminate any fret buzz...

-TBM

[EADG]

Yes but tiat is in 100% ideal situations, with a perfect streight neck and there recomended string size. I'd do it to there standards but then play with it to get the sound you need and eliminate any fret buzz...

-TBM


Basses don't have perfectly straight necks, otherwise you couldn't get notes out of them.

[godzillarator]

Basses don't have perfectly straight necks, otherwise you couldn't get notes out of them.

Why is that

[super deluxe]

Why is that

The neck needs a bit of "relief" to separate the frets from the strings. If the neck were perfectly straight, it would be in contact with the strings themselves, and thus you couldn't push the strings down to fret notes.

Did I make that more confusing?

[EADG]

Why is that


The strings would be touching the frets, muting them. The term is "choking".

[labgnat]

The strings would be touching the frets, muting them. The term is "choking".

the bassman238 mentioned perfect straight neck but the next sentence he said to make sure no fret buzz, so i don't think the perfect straight neck comment needs to be taken literally. :chug:

oh and with the massive tension bass strings put on your neck when are in standard tuning, you probably couldn't turn that truss rod bolt enough to completely straigten the neck anyway. but who knows maybe it can be done, but i know i'm not gonna try it on my basses:)

[EADG]

oh and with the massive tension bass strings put on your neck when are in standard tuning, you probably couldn't turn that truss rod bolt enough to completely straigten the neck anyway. but who knows maybe it can be done, but i know i'm not gonna try it on my basses:)


Actually you could, I have heard of basses having backbow, and a straight neck is in between backbow and relief.

If you leave your strings off your bass, it can go into a backbow.