Post by bluzman on Oct 30, 2007 8:30:42 GMT -7
I have a few questions: Ok with Humbuckers I raise/lower the pickups to find the sweetspot and I never had to worry much about being too close to the strings due to the magnetic field like with a single coil pickup.
With humbuckers I find my sweet spot set it and forget it. With my Strats I find that the pickups are kind of low with alot of distance from the pole pieces to the strings and that is where I find the sweet spot for the pickups anyways.
With P-90s I find that closer is better for that growl, and they are single coils and I never had issues with the magnetic field damping the strings even with them raised high and closer to the strings.
Here's where I am having problems... With Tele pickups, it seems to vary alot... I recently set up a friends with CS Vintage Noiseless and like with the Strat, lower seemed to give that twangy tone. It was VERY easy to set them up. I have an stock American Telecaster and it seems to like the pickups higher but I don't get that good tone until they are too close and start to dampen. The stock pickups don't seem to have nice hot sweet spot until they dampen the strings. I have the CS Texas Specials on another Telecaster and with these I get a decent sound, and they sound better higher rather than lower, but they are just starting to dampen the strings with the field just when it sounds really good. So then I lower them and they sound just OK. I just got a used stock Highway One for 375.00 and the pick-ups are little lower and it sounds better than my other Teles, but it's not quite hot enough. I tried setting up the other Teles same as the Highway One but, nah! I know alot of it has to do with what is in my head and the pickups aren't the right ones, but I'm not getting new pickups for my Teles until after the holidays, as I have to pay for the new Mini Z Red Head and order a Red Z-Best and maybe, well, we'll see ;D.
With setting up Teles, what do you guys find works best in the situations like I have above? I don't take out rulers and scales when I set up an axe... I go by feel and ear, but with the Telecasters I'm trying to keep it simple, yet with two pickups it's more elusive than with three on a Strat! I don't know if it's the metal mass with the bridge or what!
Thanks In Advance!
PaulT
With humbuckers I find my sweet spot set it and forget it. With my Strats I find that the pickups are kind of low with alot of distance from the pole pieces to the strings and that is where I find the sweet spot for the pickups anyways.
With P-90s I find that closer is better for that growl, and they are single coils and I never had issues with the magnetic field damping the strings even with them raised high and closer to the strings.
Here's where I am having problems... With Tele pickups, it seems to vary alot... I recently set up a friends with CS Vintage Noiseless and like with the Strat, lower seemed to give that twangy tone. It was VERY easy to set them up. I have an stock American Telecaster and it seems to like the pickups higher but I don't get that good tone until they are too close and start to dampen. The stock pickups don't seem to have nice hot sweet spot until they dampen the strings. I have the CS Texas Specials on another Telecaster and with these I get a decent sound, and they sound better higher rather than lower, but they are just starting to dampen the strings with the field just when it sounds really good. So then I lower them and they sound just OK. I just got a used stock Highway One for 375.00 and the pick-ups are little lower and it sounds better than my other Teles, but it's not quite hot enough. I tried setting up the other Teles same as the Highway One but, nah! I know alot of it has to do with what is in my head and the pickups aren't the right ones, but I'm not getting new pickups for my Teles until after the holidays, as I have to pay for the new Mini Z Red Head and order a Red Z-Best and maybe, well, we'll see ;D.
With setting up Teles, what do you guys find works best in the situations like I have above? I don't take out rulers and scales when I set up an axe... I go by feel and ear, but with the Telecasters I'm trying to keep it simple, yet with two pickups it's more elusive than with three on a Strat! I don't know if it's the metal mass with the bridge or what!
Thanks In Advance!
PaulT