Adjusting strings and pickup height
Gilmourish Adjusting strings and pickup height
Pictures of David’s Black Strat and the new Signature models seems to stir up some confusion regarding what the correct string and pickup height might be. I get a lot of questions about this so I’ll try to clear up some misconceptions.
If you look closely at David’s Black Strat or the new Signatures you’ll see that his pickups appears to have been set fairly low. The neck pickup is barely above the pickguard and the middle and bridge pickups seem to be lower than what’s recommended by Fender. The reason for this is that David’s pickguard is .120 of an inch, which is roughly twice as thick as the 1-ply plates on 50s Strats and slightly thicker than the 3-plys featured on 70’s models and newer. In other words, – using David’s setup as a reference for your 50’s Strat with a thin 1-ply plate may give you a completely different result than what you intended.
Keep in mind that David might prefer a slightly different setup than what you’re used to or prefer. In an interview with Guitarist magazine (June 1986) he reveals: “I often have the nuts lowered on my guitars, because I like the action as low as possible without buzzes and rattles“. As a rule, the pickup height is fixed to the string height but within this rule, there are many nuances based to personal taste, playing style and how you want the pickups to interact with the effects and amp. David also have different pickups on his Black Strat with different output that requires slightly different height. Personally I prefer the action a bit higher than what’s recommended.
String height
Fender recommends that on a vintage style neck with a 7.25” radius, the bass strings should be 2mm off the neck (about 5/64 inch) and the treble strings 1.6mm (about 4/64 inch). Tune to pitch and measure the height between each string and the fret (not wood) on the 17th fret. Adjust the height if needed by fine tuning the height on each bridge sadle. This setup might be too low for some but it’s a good starting point for making your own adjustments. Do one string at a time and be sure to retune it between each adjustment so that you’ll see and feel the correct height. Here’s a tutorial showing the proceedure.
Having the strings too low might cause some fret buzz (this might also be caused by worn frets or a curved neck, or lack of curve) and you might find it hard to do bends etc. An action that’s too high might make it hard to play properly and the strings might also ring and vibrate too much. Find the setup that you’re comfortable with.
Every now and then you need to check the curvature of the neck. Inside each neck there’s a metal bar – the truss rod. This makes sure that the neck has the right preasure and curve. If this is out of balance you’ll get bad intonation and fret buzz. This is common and caused by temeprature changes, humidity, presure changes (going from 09 to 010 adds about 6 kilos to your neck) and it’s easy to adjust. Here’s a tutorial showing the proceedure.
Pickup height
Fender recommends that vintage style pickups (CS54, Fat 50s, CS69, SSL1, SSL5 etc) should be set slightly tilted with 2.4mm between the pole piece and the bass strings and 2mm between the pole piece and the treble strings. Measure the height by pushing down the strings on the very last fret next to the body.
- (left neck – right bridge) As you can see, the neck pickup is slightly off the pickguard on the bass side. As the strings are higher towards the bridge the middle and bridge pickup is further off the pickguard.
- (left bridge – right neck) Here’s the treble side of the pickups. You can see how they’re titled higher than on the bass side.
However, this method only works if you prefer the standard string height suggested by Fender. If you want a higher action the only way to set the correct pickup height is to use your ears. Too low and you’ll loose much of the lower frequencies and attack. Too high and the tone gets too boomy and slightly “punctured” like you’ve added too much compression. You’ll also notice ringing overtones caused by magnetic interference.
When you’ve found the sweetspot, you need to balance the output volume between all three pickups. Use a clean tone on your amp and switch between all pickups until you’ve matched the volume. Be careful that you don’t loose your self here and adjust the height too much and need to start all over again.
Keep in mind that other pickups like active EMGs, humbucker etc requires a different setup. See the brand’s homepage for details. You also want to have alnico 5 pickups (like CS69) slightly closer to the strings than alnico 2, which has a higher output.
