Pickup height & tuning issues?

KLINKDETROIT

KLINKDETROIT

New member
We are recording a CD and seem to have tuning issues even after having all the ( Les Paul) guitars set up at the same time. Would pickup height cause the individual notes to sound out of tune or waver? We have multiple tuners set up as well. Would the tuners interact negatively with each other? We all have tonepros and sperzel tuners and 2 guitars have Earvana nuts. Never had these problems before or never had a good enough ear to recognize it before? Any suggestions? Thanks.
 
Re: Pickup height & tuning issues?

Having the pickups too close to the strings can pull them out of tune, especially if they have strong magnets.
 
Re: Pickup height & tuning issues?

+1 ^. Ist this your first studio experience? I remember mine, the engineer kept saying "check your tuning" to me every 2 seconds. I realized then that until you actually enter the studio, most of us play out of tune and don't realize it. Try lowering the pups, but I'm wondering if the issues don't revolve around the infamous B string and G string problem. I believe it is and inherent problem in the design of the guitar and the way it is tuned that those two strings don't play well with others.
 
Re: Pickup height & tuning issues?

mixing guitars with earvanas and guitars without them will yield audible differences ... same with feitenized guitars
 
Re: Pickup height & tuning issues?

What height would you say is the optimum for tuning and tone? I like it about 2 or 3mm but it seems this must be too close?
 
Re: Pickup height & tuning issues?

Are you sure you all set your tuners to 440? I would even suggest you all tune your guitars to just one tuner insted of multiple tuners. When I do my recording, I always tune to the keyboard or the piano because they can't change. Pickup or polepiece heights may affect the tuning, but the effect is minimal in my opinion even though I set my polepiece height to 2.4 mm at the bass side and 1.6 mm at the treble side for my LP.
 
Re: Pickup height & tuning issues?

Humbuckers can be moved pretty darn close to the strings without pulling the strings out of tune because although they do have some magnetic pull, the polepieces are not magnets....the actual magnet is under the coils of the pickup. Strat type pickups are differant and the polepieces are actual magnets and will pull the strings out of tune if the pickups are to close. In the case of a Strat, "to close" is when you notice the wound E and A strings sounding out of tune when you play above the 10th fret.
 
Re: Pickup height & tuning issues?

Would a pickup with 2 slug coils pull less or more than a standard slug/screw configuration? We are using 3 tuners to get an acurate reading as they are all alittle different and this is what the bass player used. I always use 1 tuner but because the bass tracks were done using a middle ground between 3 tuners we figured it would be best to keep with the same system for guitars. Would having 3 tuners interact with each other in a negative way?
 
Re: Pickup height & tuning issues?

I don't think the slug/slug or slug/screw setup will make a big difference IMO, but I'll definitely stay with only one tuner. The extra tuners will only cause more confusion. There should be only one standard that everyone should adhere to. Just like a metronome. You don't use three metronomes and take their middle ground to keep the timing. Do you?
 
Re: Pickup height & tuning issues?

I should mention that we use DR tite fit 11-50 on 2 Les Pauls and D'adario 11-49 on one Les Paul. Everything is tuned 1 whole step down (D) and dropped C on the lowest string.
 
Re: Pickup height & tuning issues?

KLINKDETROIT said:
I should mention that we use DR tite fit 11-50 on 2 Les Pauls and D'adario 11-49 on one Les Paul. Everything is tuned 1 whole step down (D) and dropped C on the lowest string.
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That does require some care and patience in tuning. Yet, it is more imperative that you tune to a single tuner or you'll have a multiplier effect with multiple tuners on your differences. The way I would do it is have everyone tune to one tuner and then check against each other to make sure that everyone is in tune. Just make sure the intonations on all the guitars are also correct. We do this all the time when we play in the orchestra. The conductor will have everyone tune their instrument first and then ask them to play the same note at once to double check with either the master tuner or the piano. You'll know you're out of tune if you don't sound like the other 60 or more instruments.
 
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