Adjusting a pickup both height of pickup and screws

[75lespaul]

How would you go about setting the pickup for premium tone by adjusting both the pickup height and the screws in the coils? I've just installed a bridge humbucker and I want to adjust that (Dimarzio Mo'Joe) and the neck (Antiquity). By the way, together they sound great, giving a classic Les Paul quacky sound but the Mo'Joe alone seems bright. Hoping the right adjustment will level off the brightness a bit. I tried playing with the tone knob, but I want to do this the right way first by adjusting everything correctly. Powerful and full pickup though, whoah!

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Adjusting a pickup both height of pickup and screws

It's entirely up to your ears and personal tonal preference. DiMarzio has a recommended height for each pickup, but even that is personal preference to a degree (i.e. what they feel represents the ideal tone from the pickup, though it's generally more of a technical spec dealing with the string's relationship to the magnetic field rather than tonal perfection).


If the bridge is too bright by itself, change the volume pot to a 250K. However, you may find it doesn't work as well with the neck pickup once the new pot comes into play, so you may want a 500K push/pull or push/push pot with a resistor to cut it down to 250K when the bridge is used alone.


Also, adjusting the height of the pickup as well as the coil screws will change the tonal aspects of the pickup - if you raise or lower them, you may find it's not as powerful or not as full-sounding.

 

[lemonman]

Re: Adjusting a pickup both height of pickup and screws

Lowering the polepieces and raising the entire pup to compensate will fatten up the tone.

Raise the bass side height screw a quarter turn at a time (or lower the treble side a quarter turn at a time).

If the pup is tilted so that the screw poles are closer to the strings than the slugs, wedge it so the pup is parallel to the strings.

If these don't work, then it's time start swapping pots & caps, etc.

 

[75lespaul]

Re: Adjusting a pickup both height of pickup and screws

It's set up like a super distortion where they are all hex bolts, but I get the point. Cool beans, I'll try it all. I know there was a thread about this a while back, but I could't find it.

 

[75lespaul]

Re: Adjusting a pickup both height of pickup and screws

Did the things you guys said and ooooh, it sounds oh so different now. This is a monster pickup imo. It is still a little bright, but putting the tone knob down to five cures that. I adjusted the Ant I have in the neck and together they are oh so sweet. So many different tones to get playing with the volumes and tones together. I set the Mo'Joe pickup high and then turned the three treble hex screws counter clockwise half turn each, then adjusted the bass and treble sides until I got what I wanted. I may play with it a little more tomorrow, maybe turning the E and B string hexes down a bit more. This is fun, huh?