Newbie Question - Calibrated Pickup Sets

L

Little Jerry

New member
I noticed that Seymour Duncan offers "calibrated" sets of single coil matched strat pickups (and maybe other types as well). Is there value to having single coil sets calibrated? If so, will Seymour Duncan calibrate a set of mixed pickups, say SSL1 (neck), SSL1 RWRP (middle) and SSL5 (bridge)? If yes, how does one go about ordering a calibrated mixed set? Thanks!
 
Re: Newbie Question - Calibrated Pickup Sets

Nah.

It's just marketing for "this is a set that works well together". It is not manufactured nor measured to be anything special.
 
Re: Newbie Question - Calibrated Pickup Sets

Well, the volume of each pickup is even for a given height. That isn't the case with traditional sets.
 
Re: Newbie Question - Calibrated Pickup Sets

"Calibrated" just means the volume of your guitar stays roughly the same when you switch from pickup to pickup.
That means the bridge pickup is a bit louder and thicker sounding than the neck pickup, because neck pickups get a stronger signal from the strings due to their location.
If you put the exact same pickup in both positions and adjust them to the same distance from the strings the neck pickup will be louder than the bridge pickup. They way to solve this on classic guitars (where pickups are usually the same) is to adjust the bridge pickup high and the neck pickup low.
Sometime around the 1970s guitar companies started putting a "hotter" pickup in the bridge position, which makes it easier to balance the volume and thickness. A set of thg these pickups are sometimes called "calibrated."
That's all. It's not something you do to a pickup, it means the pickups go together well.
 
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