Tips on adjusting screw polepieces

[St_Genesius]

Are there any general guidelines beyond "what sounds good?" I keep playing with the polepieces (and the overall height) of my Retrotron, trying to fine tune the sound, but it gets a bit hard after a while to hear exactly what I'm accomplishing.

 

[lozano71]

Re: Tips on adjusting screw polepieces

thats a question that i havent had realy explained to me.from what i have gathered is that you adjust them at the sameangle of the neck were it attaches to the bodyi forget what the exactly the right measurement is,though.then again i could be totaly off track.if i am,can someone tell us the right way to adjust them,and do you really notice a differance?

 

[shreder75]

Re: Tips on adjusting screw polepieces

you sure do notice a difference....I'd had some guitars where the pups were directly mounted to the body so you couldn't adjust the height...raising the poles definetly helped focus the pickup...

as far as the 'rights and wrongs' of it...welp, there's really no right or wrong way to do it...just do it until it sounds best....which you have heard before apparently...lol....

sometimes adjusting it, walking away and comming back later gives you a better idea...fresh ears and all

 

[chill]

Re: Tips on adjusting screw polepieces

you sure do notice a difference....I'd had some guitars where the pups were directly mounted to the body so you couldn't adjust the height...raising the poles definetly helped focus the pickup...

as far as the 'rights and wrongs' of it...welp, there's really no right or wrong way to do it...just do it until it sounds best....which you have heard before apparently...lol....

sometimes adjusting it, walking away and comming back later gives you a better idea...fresh ears and all

Sho Nuff! :laugh2:

 

[neosadist]

Re: Tips on adjusting screw polepieces

Are there any general guidelines beyond "what sounds good?" I keep playing with the polepieces (and the overall height) of my Retrotron, trying to fine tune the sound, but it gets a bit hard after a while to hear exactly what I'm accomplishing.

From reading the ESP guitar manual (which is rather nice), and other things, back them down to flush with the pickup, then if a string sounds abnormally stronger than the others, adjust that one down (or all the others up). That's what I would do.

 

[Rich_S]

Re: Tips on adjusting screw polepieces

Dane Erlewine's book How to Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great has a good description of how Gibson does it at the factory. Most of it is matching the string radius.

Everyone should own this book.