How should I set the height on my neck humbucker?

[Wrogsprit]

The neck humbucker is a Benedetto B6. The guitar is an Epiphone Les Paul 100 with a bolt on neck. I was reading up about the way Ed Bickert sets up his tele, and he seems to set his neck humbucker deep into his guitar. I tried to do the same on mine. It seems to be quite a bit lower than on a Tele or regular Les Paul, maybe because of the bolt on neck. Also, I felt a bit of resistance when screwing in my pickup this low. Could I damage the pickup by doing this?

[Helliger]

There's no rule except that if you get it too close to the strings the magnet can pull the strings out of tune. You can kind of hear it warble a bit if your too close and the stronger the magnet the farther away you need to get. The bridge pickup can be closer to the string since there's more resistance since it's close to the bridge.

Basically you set it to wear you think it sounds the best. The farther away from the strings it will be clearer but also weaker so a different sound. I set the pickup I use the most to the position I think sounds best and then adjust the other pickups to have a similar volume (some people want certain positions be louder though). Yours looks pretty far from the strings but that's not bad if you like the way it sounds. If you raise it quite a bit (which it looks like you can) I bet you'll notice a very different sound. You can also raise one side more, like the treble side higher if you don't like the balance with the bass strings.

Super easy to change so just use your ear and make sure it's not so close that the strings aren't being affected by the magnet pull.

[frankhond]

If you screw it far enough it might reach the end of the screws and fall off. Or in the other direction it will eventually crack the pickup ring.

But why have the B6 really low? The magnet is already recessed under the epoxy. I have two of these in my Heritage 575. Sounds great at pretty normal heights.

[Wrogsprit]

If you screw it far enough it might reach the end of the screws and fall off. Or in the other direction it will eventually crack the pickup ring.

But why have the B6 really low? The magnet is already recessed under the epoxy. I have two of these in my Heritage 575. Sounds great at pretty normal heights.

Mostly because I was copying the way Ed Bickert set his humbucker in his tele. I also wanted to pick closer to the neck without hitting the pickup.

[ThatRhythmMan]

The issue with pull on strings is really only an issue with pickups with poles that are made of actual magnets, like a typical Fender pickup. It’s not really an issue with a PAF style pickup as the magnet is on the baseplate and can’t really get close enough to the string to exert that much of an effect. I’m sure there are those who feel otherwise though.

I would just adjust a pickup like this one without adjustable poles until I found the spot where I like it best. You can’t really “hurt” anything. As noted before, if you go too low the screws may come out of the baseplate and have to be reinstalled and if you go too high the strings will hit the top of the pickup when fretting up high.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[frankhond]

Mostly because I was copying the way Ed Bickert set his humbucker in his tele. I also wanted to pick closer to the neck without hitting the pickup.

Looked at pictures of "the Ed Bickert Telecaster" on the internet and it's a regular humbucker in the neck. The B6 is a different design altogether (there is a thread about it somewhere and some additional info on google) and there is a spacing layer of epoxy on top to bring the active parts down lower than they would be on a regular pickup. I don't know why Ed had his pickup this way, but I suspect he listened and adjusted accordingly. I suggest you try some different heights and keep what sounds good to you. The height you have on your pictures is pretty low already.

On my guitar the B6 has a very wide range of tones depending on the volume dial, at 3-5 I get a soft acoustic like tone with lots of headroom, at 6-7 I get a warm humbucker tone, while at full it becomes pretty hot. Great to ride the volume it during a song especially into a slightly breaking up amp. Setting the pickup too low probably loses some of that range. Experiment and best of luck.

[Cunamara]

Ed B put the pickup down just about even with the pickup ring, looking at photos and videos. But that was for that pickup, that guitar, his technique, the amps he used, etc. The Benedetto pickup is very different from the Gibson pick up that Ed was using- no polepieces, for one thing, and wound to a much higher resistance. As others have said, adjust it till it sounds like what you want.

You have to start somewhere. My starting point is the bridge pickup- put a nickel in between the high E string and the pickup cover and adjust until they just touch; a little bit lower on the bass side. Then I adjust the neck pickup until it's balanced in volume with the bridge pickup. This is IMHO a pretty neutral setup that works for blues, jazz and rock. From there I may raise or lower depending on the pickup, the guitar, the amp, etc.

Your guitar is very different from Ed's Telecaster (construction of the body, bridge design, scale, etc.), the pickup is very different and presumably your amps, technique, etc. are unique to you as well. Running the pickup that low may or may not work for you. Best of luck with the experimentation!

[Jimmy blue note]

Ed played with an archtop (standel amp), a tele with thin single coil pickups, a tele with a humbucker and he always sounded like himself. I dare say he himself was guided by a sound he had in his own head and ears and that pursuit guided his choice of hardware and not the other way around. Pickup height is such a delicate matching of electronics and touch that it may be ill advised to use that metric as a starting point for achieving an artist's sound; simply, it's the most personal adjustment and the sound parameters may be the most personal and unimitatable. Just sayin'
To that end, as the spot on comments so far have pointed out, lots of things contribute to "a" sound: string gauge, pick, amp, YOUR touch, YOUR chord voicings, the concepts that determine how a line is constructed, the attack on the string and how your playing and phrasing allows that sound to resonate, and the fact that you missed the opportunity to buy Ed's actual guitar recently.
I wanted to be Ed Bikert at one point (that happens a lot) and it made me want to buy a tele with a humbucker and a standel amp) and then I watched Lorne Lofsky's videos on pianistic voicings and that brought me closer to those sensibilities than any piece of hardware could.
But go for it. Good luck. Find his sound. Find your sound. Learn your harmony. Learn your harmony in 4ths. Remember that he got his sound because it was the end product of NOT wanting to sound like something that wasn't himself, and it was the evolutional journey of HIS ear. He had no shortcuts or he wouldn't sound like that.
Good luck and I can't wait to hear what you come up with!

[jim777]

Set the pickup very low and play the guitar until you get a good idea of how it sounds for all the stuff you do and all the ways you play. Then raise it a bit, repeat, raise it a bit, repeat... You'll know what sounds best to you when you've heard it in a few places. IMHO, that's the best way to do it and the best way to find out if a pickup is really for you.

I was recently going to swap out the pickups in one of my guitars (an EBMM Steve Morse) and went through this, and found the guitar sounds great with the pickups set almost flat with the guitar top. So much better than the way they were set when I got it, I was actually so surprised I laughed about it But, I was happy to keep the $300 new pickups would have run me if I hadn't tried the originals in a lot of different spots.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

The issue with pull on strings is really only an issue with pickups with poles that are made of actual magnets, like a typical Fender pickup. It’s not really an issue with a PAF style pickup as the magnet is on the baseplate and can’t really get close enough to the string to exert that much of an effect. I’m sure there are those who feel otherwise though.

Actually, the “polepieces” are magnetized by the magnet(s) beneath them and become magnets themselves. If you hold a small ferrous object like a screwdriver near them, it will be attracted to the polepieces. They do exert string pull because of this. Because they’re not magnets themselves, they retain little or no magnetism when removed from the pickup’s magnet(s).

That pull has 3 main effects when the strings are close enough to be affected. First, it can cause tuning and intonation problems. Second, it can damp higher order harmonics. This will alter the tonal character of the signal, making it darker by mechanically rolling off highs in the signal. But the effect is spurious and based on the mechanics of string vibration and resonances on a given guitar, so it doesn’t have the predictable effect of a tone pot or cap. And third, if close enough to the strings, it will damp all string vibration and constrict / compress tone and volume.

I think the above explains how pickup height influences tone and playing feel.

[ThatRhythmMan]

While you are of course correct that the polepieces become magnetic through their association with the baseplate mounted magnet, their pull is significantly different than having an actual alnico magnet slug sitting right next to the string. Also, the interaction based on distance is more complex than just the magnetic pull in the string. The actual disruption of the magnetic field by the string is also altered based on distance. In my experience, even in the neck position, it’s pretty much impossible to get a PAF style pickup with normal magnets close enough to string to exert a significant dampening effect on a vibrating string, unless of course the string is actually hitting the pickup. I wouldn’t say the same of a Strat pickup. Your opinion may differ of course.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

While you are of course correct that the polepieces become magnetic through their association with the baseplate mounted magnet, their pull is significantly different than having an actual alnico magnet slug sitting right next to the string. Also, the interaction based on distance is more complex than just the magnetic pull in the string. The actual disruption of the magnetic field by the string is also altered based on distance. In my experience, even in the neck position, it’s pretty much impossible to get a PAF style pickup with normal magnets close enough to string to exert a significant dampening effect on a vibrating string, unless of course the string is actually hitting the pickup. I wouldn’t say the same of a Strat pickup. Your opinion may differ of course.

“Normal magnets” is the key phrase here. I agree that traditional low output covered humbuckers won’t cause major problems - but raised too high, most don’t sound as good as they do further away from the strings. This is probably more because of the shape of the magnetic field in which they envelope the strings than direct string pull.

Low output humbuckers with metal covers do exert less string pull than most open single coils. But “modern” HBs can really tug on your strings. The generic, builders’ grade open ceramic HBs that come on so many imported guitars are classic examples. If raised to a position close to the strings, they cause ghost tones, intonation, and other gross sonic aberrations. I have a few such pairs in my parts bin that I had to remove because of this. They’re fairly thick and were mounted directly to the bottom of the rout, so they could not be lowered without routing deeper.

The shape of the magnetic field over the pickup is a prime determinant of signal strength and character. Everything from basic design to minor embellishments like materials used, bevels on polepiece edges, cover materials and characteristics (eg full, single polepiece row or double) etc affects signal generation and resultant tone, output voltage, sustain, etc.

[Helliger]

While you are of course correct that the polepieces become magnetic through their association with the baseplate mounted magnet, their pull is significantly different than having an actual alnico magnet slug sitting right next to the string. Also, the interaction based on distance is more complex than just the magnetic pull in the string. The actual disruption of the magnetic field by the string is also altered based on distance. In my experience, even in the neck position, it’s pretty much impossible to get a PAF style pickup with normal magnets close enough to string to exert a significant dampening effect on a vibrating string, unless of course the string is actually hitting the pickup. I wouldn’t say the same of a Strat pickup. Your opinion may differ of course.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think it's one of those things that's super easy to find out by simply testing it out with different pickup heights. It either starts affecting the string (which you can hear) or it doesn't. I think that's a better guideline than going through the physics of various pickup designs.

Such an easy tweak and a good way to change things up if you just want a different sound from the guitar for a bit. Pickup height, different string type, different picks. Three super easy changes that are reversible and have a great affect on tone and feel.