Pickup height with big ceramic magnets

[XPAULPITT]

I was at a friends house today who recently put a DD in his guitar after I recommended it to him. He was complaining that it sounded muddy. When I got to his house I saw that he had it up very high like you would do with an A2 or a weaker magnet pickup. I dropped it down and eventually settled at about 7/32" away from the strings and it sounded amazing. He was blown away. It still amazes me how much even a 32nd of an inch can change how a pickup sounds. I find that this is why so many people seem to hate on ceramics.

[Christopher Caruana]

Re: Pickup height with big ceramic magnets

Im no expert, but I think its due to the high output of the magnet and its pull on the strings. It was probably too close and not letting the strings breath enough

[XPAULPITT]

Re: Pickup height with big ceramic magnets

Yeah. That's what I explained to him. He said he had it high because he thought that if it was low he wouldn't get all the harmonics out of it. With it that high and the strength of that huge magnet he was actually killing the harmonics and the sustain. Hopefully I converted another person over to the DD. I love that pickup. A lot of people don't like pickups like the DD or the Invader. Even the Gibson 500T, but if you get these pickups in the right spot they sound great.