Setup help. Direct mounted pickups adjustment.

[Mazrim]

O.K, I have my beautiful new J Custom but I have a problem that I havent encountered before as Ive always had ring mounted pups and so need advice before I do anything else.

The pick up height (particularly on the bridge pick up) is a little too low for my tastes as I like a lot of bite and sustain. However, when I tried to raise the pick up, the screws came loose. So I cant really set the pup any higher than it is now. I've heard tell of foam and so on but I was just wondering if anybody else has had this problem and what they did to solve it.

I'm only a few millimetres away from sonic heaven, I reckon. Its pretty frustrating.

Bestow upon me knowledge, wizards all knowing, all wise.

[littlephil]

Foam is pretty much the way to go. Or really anything solid (slice of tonewood maybe haha) that will lift it up.

[Mazrim]

And use the same screws or would I need longer screws do you think?

[GazTop]

No the screws lengths are fine.


It's just there is nothing to push up the pickup past a certain point. So we add some chunky foam under it and now the pickup will raise to the new higher height and won't rattle about either.



Simple and effective fix.

[Mazrim]

Okies, cheers.
Seems a bit of palava this direct mounted pups lark but c'est la vie.

Now to find some foam.

[brothersnowgone]

If you can find foam, an unused household sponge cut to size will give you the extra travel you need.

[Dan_H]

...and the same foam is also great if you put a strip underneath the strings at the headstock behind the locking nut. Cuts out a ton of unwanted harmonics if you're playing with lots of distortion and want to stop chords dead without hearig ringing overtones in the gaps.

[Donovan]

If you can get some thick double sided tape you can stick it to the PU and stack the tape up until you get the right height. This will also keep the PU in there without screws if they are too short or if they rattle around a little. I used tape when I installed EMGs into my GRT3120 and it worked fine.

[Ibanez-Mag]

Just put a bit of cardboard paper under the pickup.
Remove it, cut a bit of paper in a shape that fits under the pickup, the thickness of the paper as thick as how much you want to raise the pickup.

But you actually lose sustain the closer the pickups comes to the strings.
What you will get is that the amp gets more output from the guitar and will be driven harder (more overdrive/distortion).
And you will lose dynamics and clarity when it comes closer.


/magnus

[metalguy]

Or, you could take the pickup out, drill holes where it screws down, install threaded inserts, and then use machine screws and springs to adjust it just like a pickup ring would.

Thats how my guitar is and its genius...