How to set the height of your guitar pickups for optimal tone 

Honestly this is simpler than most make it out to be. You adjust and you listen. When you like what you hear, you're good...

Funny, when you said it sounded muddy, I expected you to lower the bass side, but making it higher actually made it sound clearer. Good tips! Cheers

I think it was very good that he pointed out that pickup height preferences are a personal thing. People get way to wrapped up In measurements when in reality you need to let your ear tell you when the pickup is the “correct” height.

At first I was very puzzled because I was looking up on youtube how to achieve the 'right' height for the pickups not expecting to find all different kind of heights amongst other musicians. Finally I decided to stick to your measurements due to the fact you'r referring to Fender specs. That did it for me. Thx for sharing !

That explains my horrible tone during my garage bad days. I had the pickups as high as I could get them on my flying V, because it made more volume, but I could never figure out why my sustain was nonexistent, so I compensated that with a compression pedal, dialed up to max. That of course caused all kinds of weird issues with noise and unwanted overtones, so I had to have a noise gate, which of course was dialed up as high a threshold as I could get and still have something come out the speakers. Then of course I had to have all the modulation effects that everyone else was using like delay, flanger, and phaser before at the front of my signal, so you can imagine the mess that came out in the end with the gain turned up full. It's a wonder anyone could tell the difference between different songs. It's also why I kept my day job. At least my tone is good these days, lol.

I'm glad I'm not the only one looking at this and feeling like those pickups are higher than I would ever go for.

*Come on man... These pickups have been set insanely high ...*

This was an expensive video for me. I liked the sound of his Fernandes so much, I went out and bought one . . .

Thanks. This tutorial woke me up on how I never gave a second thought to the height of my pups. Now I'm gonna take the chance to have a look and tweak around 👏 👏

Thanks to your video on setting pickup height, this really has come in handy in getting the best sound from the electric cigar box guitars I build. It's a seeming small detail that can easily get overlooked by those of us who build CBG's, but pays off in huge dividends. Thanks again!

"They all have different pickup heights because they have different styles... and you're no different!" I thought about this for a while.

Using a clean setting on the amp might have helped us hear the difference.

My humbuckers sit lowest than the single coils on my SSH Strat, since the HB's are naturally louder. So sinking them more balances the volume so it doesnt surprise u when you switch pickups live. And my singles sits low than this demo to begin with. Its all in your preferences.

Thanks for sharing a fine tutorial. However it would be interesting to have a clean tone section too.

How many of us in our youth bought replacement pickups, thinking the ones in the guitar sounded like crap? Never occurred to me then that maybe they just needed to be adjusted to find the sweet spot. I even returned boutique pickups I didn’t like, saying the “sound was no better!” Now I’m obsessive about dialing in the perfect tone. I also use my volume and tone controls like never before to fine tune things further with different amp settings. It’s very subjective from the comments I’ve read here. Thanks StewMac.

Damned stewmac; measure also in metric !!

Thank you! This helped me so much! I thought they were fine, and was trying to use eq to shape my sound - but I did a fresh tune up on both my Jaguar and Les Paul and then ran them DI thru an interface, to a pair of studio headphones, and followed this procedure. Ended up putting the very hot pickups in both WAY lower than I ever would have otherwise and wow do they sound good and clean! My Les Paul I never turned up past half volume, and never used both pickups at the same time and now it just sounds good all over (to me).

Actually, due to the way a Fender style single coil pickup is constructed, if the pole pieces, which are the magnets in this style of pickup, are too close to the strings the magnetic field can adversely affect intonation. So going by ear you might think, "hey this sounds great" and then get frustrated when you notice later on a string sounds off on part of the fretboard and you can't seem to get the saddle in a spot where the intonation is right. Lower those suckers, and like magic, you can now intonate your string again.

I like my single coils low end 5/32 and the high end 3/32. It makes a strat much more articulate.I can always kick on my overdrive if I need more sound.

Great vid. There are as many different preferences for height and how to set it as there are Strat players. I favor the bridge pickup as well, but my methodology has always been to put everything at about 1/8" to start (eyeballed). Then I dial the bridge pickup till I like it, though as a recording engineer, I usually lower what I don't like rather than raise to get more of what I do like. Once I've got the bridge pickup where I like it, I get the tonal balance of the neck pickup as I like it, then compare the volume of the neck and bridge, and then usually lower the neck pickup equally on both sides to even out volume with the bridge pickup. Lastly, I adjust the middle pickup. I never use it by itself, so I usually just adjust it so positions 2 and 4 on the 5-way sound as quacky as I like. Keeping this pickup lower, and lowering rather than raising generally, helps keep me from getting things too close and causing weird magnetic overtones.

0:49 Hair went from passionate Erick to cool Erick

When i played strat i had them waaay lower than that. With the treble side slightly raised. We all play so differently lmao.

I keep my strat pickups very low for more sustain and even tone and using booster to bring it up, works well ;)

My advice is to measure your starting point. Then you won't be afraid to try out different heights. When calibrating two/three pickups to each other I listen to their characteristics. Neither of the pickups should be dominant when being switched together.

It's funny how Fender specs them so high. I watched a post by Dan Patlansky a few years back and he lowers his Strat pickups as low as they'll go (his were almost level with the pickguard). I did it with my Texas Specials and, while they're no longer as hot, the sustain and tone both increased.

Whatever works. Depends on string gauge and desired effect. The lace sensors allow a setup closer to the strings at the neck.

I used to have a tuning device called a Strobopick by Planet Wave that projected strobed led light on the string and if you had the pickups too close you can visually see the stratiitis on the on the strings. The frequency would wobble back and forth (this was with alnico 2). I found that putting pickups lower than what you're showing gives a purer tone, if that's what you're looking for.

Gracious. Everybody has their preferences, and what's right for you, is right! As a Stratocaster player of 57 years, I dunk the neck PUP nearly down to the pickguard; set the middle a bit higher, and the bridge higher still, keeping it away from the playing hand. The biggest problem, is that consarned raised third polepiece, hovering underneath an unwound 3rd string. Cannot for the life of me figure out why Fender keeps making a wound polepiece in an unwound world ...

This is such a great tutorial! Good audio, good video, good explanation!

Jimi was very particular about his guitar setups, though he did experiment a lot, thank goodness!

6:10 EHHHH

Tks for those specs. I also own a Fernandes like yours and God I love it more than almost every Strats I've tried.

If you put the PU to close: Stratitis, to far away: get thin, in between: there is enough space to adjust volume. Farther away typically means more dynamics and sustain. With a little lower thus softer and thinner mid PU, positions 2 and 4 get better, in my opinion. I start with the mid PU but coming from low, until it is not to thin. Next is the neck, which needs to be hearable louder. Than I test the mid/neck to get the balance right. Last is the bridge, same level as neck. Always try soloing across all strings and strumming with patterns typical for this position.

Thanks, this will help immensely with a project I'm doing, replacing pickups for the first time.

Great tutorial. Thanks for stressing the personal dynamics rather than making it a cookie cutter lesson based on Fender specs.

Thanks very much. I have a very old Vox spitfire. It’s been sitting in the gig bag for at least 30 years. I recently decided to get back into it and noticed that the bridge pickup (on the treble side) is all the way down ! Even below the body of the guitar! Now, I have a good idea how to adjust it . THANK YOU VERY MUCH !!

Oh man. It depends all on your ears. Just play with the pickup height and give it a listen.

I love that copper pick guard

Doing this with distortion on seems strange to me..

Since I’m very confused I just set it to be as high output as possible without playing issues, then balanced it between the pickup that was outputting the least so I didn’t have one pickup louder than the other. The higher the output the less gain I need to use and therefore, less hum/noise. I did not balance the output of the low strings with the high strings, low strings are louder than high ones, I figured this was fine because I’ll need less gain to chug, and the high strings still come through with chords and leads. I’m a more dynamic player anyway, so it fits. Also I like the sound of somewhat muddy chords. I don’t how anyone else does this, I wish there were more guidelines lol.

Thanks for sharing; I hope this is as simple as you make it look. Power to the players!

My pick hand improved so much when i got rid of my strat and its volume knob early on as a beginner

I’ve come to realize that one needs to test strat pickup height with high gain settings, on the low strings, in the upper register of the guitar to really dial in playable settings. The recommended settings played lower gain belie the warble one would hear otherwise. Hope this helps someone save some time.

I use my Allen keys - one is marked 3/32 and is perfect for setting the gap - slide it between the pickup and string - viola.

I find that lowering my pickups gives me more dynamics between amp and guitar. Sounds more expressive...

Yes, it's a matter of taste. I prefer the pickups on the Strat at a distance of at least 5 mm from the strings.

"My ham fisted style of playing." I love it.

No need for a ruler if you have a set of drill bits. Pick the size you want and stick it to the magnet. Adjust it til it touches the string. I discovered this kinda by accident. It works!

Thanks for the vid , it really helped me , before my guitar tone was doing some sort of "glitches" by not going in a straight line ... anyways .. after tho it really sounds great by strumming soft or hard . In both ways it sounds good and the "glitches" are no more :) Apreciate the help !

I was changing, and measuring heights, and chasing sound forever, Now I have my pickups all the way down that the pickup covers are flush flat with the pick guard now, and it’s giving off serious tone and harmonics that it never did before. - 2008 American Olympic Strat w/factory pickups.

Excellent! I really appreciate these videos. Thank you!

Great tips. I have an early 2000's Fernandes AFR-55 in my collection. Very underrated Japaneese guitars in my opinion.

It would be great if you guys put the measurements in millimeters on the screen

Thank you a lot , have pickups in the mail coming my way soon and it’s my 1st time replacing pickups on my Strat , I’ve got my fingers cross 🤞🤞it’ll be fine...

I like my bridge slightly louder then the other pups (it's my secret weapon) but a lower setting overall for a fatter sound.

I just play a telecaster jammed on the bridge pickup. It came well set up out of the box, I'm pretty sure I've tweaked everything else but the height of that pickup. Just make sure it all sounds good to you!

I just raise them till they make wolftones, then drop them down to the point where the wolftones disappear.

I’ve spent the past week messing with extremes at both ends of the height spectrum and have found I like the stats lower. Pretty much flush with the tops of the set screws at the neck, very slightly above that at middle and slightly higher yet at bridge a little tilt for even volume string to string. Warm but dynamic and harmonic. My teles like the single nickel at the high e. Two nickels on the low E,spacing,neck and bridge. I Usually back them off another 1/4-1/2 turn after that.

First luthier I see that can actually play! Not only your G and D but go up and down the neck. Great

After adjusting the pickups to the high E string, check the pickup height at the low E again. It will have risen, too, because the pivot is further away at the adjustment screw!

Those pickups sound fantastic! 👍🏻

Thank you very much for taking the time to record this video. Very informative and helpful.

Excellent Video, Beautiful Fernandez! Huge difference between P/up heights. We need a Stew Mac in Australia, please! 👍👍👍. Melbourne, Australia.

He has a single ply pickguard, which is thinner than a 3 ply and makes the pickups look adjusted higher. But it is the distance between the bottom of the E and e strings and the top of their pickup pole pieces that count.

This guy could tell me anything and id believe him

Learned some good stuff from this video!

The great thing about adjusting your pickups is that you literally turn a screw and can change your sound. It’s the easiest part of guitar setup because you can do all the adjusting by ear. Trust you ears! Btw is anyone else confused by this guy raising the pickups to reduce muddiness? I thought lowering it reduces low end ?

I know I'm late to the game here, but hopefully by now you have re-evaluated your strumming hand position. You can control the guitar's tone considerably as you strum farther away from the bridge. For really full sound, I sometimes end up strumming over the fingerboard. Give it a try if you haven't already.

Thank you for The Cramps sticker ~ I always do it by ear (who cares what F recommends?)

Factory specs are a good starting point and adjust from there for your own style and preference. Personally, I don't want even sound between positions. I lower the bridge for a softer rhythm sound, rasie the middle for lead or a perceived boost in postitions 2 and 4, and set the neck (where I spend most of my time) somewhere inbetween. Unconventional, but it works for me. Like he said, dial in your own guitar for your own sound...

What ever he just slapped out at 5:18 was plain nasty!!! Wicked lick

I appreciate this heads up, I'll put this to good use when adjusting my DiMazio pick ups when I get them

With vintage stagger pole pieces, I find flipping the PU around keeps the "A" string from being over bearing on chords, and aids in the clarity of the high strings. Note that I have my PUs set lower into the pickguard. Strings sustain better this way too!

In the end it seems like you just put them up as high as possible without having the magnets pull on the string too much... maybe. It would be interesting to see how running a set up like yours and lowering the pickups and running the amp hotter to make up any volume loss (might help that perceived low end flub too?) will affect sustain and warbles in your tuning stability.

"3/32nds to 5/64ths" HOW CONFUSING IS THE IMPERIAL SYSTEM!

Hey if he likes it then that is good enough for him, it is a very subjective thing. I personally would have gone for the cleanest sound I could get (no electronics/distortion) but that is my subjectivity. Very nice presentation, I like it

If you raise the pickups too close to the strings wouldn’t the magnetic pull mess up the intonation?

In his setup video, Joe Walsh mentions adjusting the height of the bottom of the pickup (first string end) and top of the pickup (6th string end) independently, if necessary, to make sure the volume is consistent between the first and 6th strings.

Many thanks, very clear tutorial, an I found it very helpful! I jus been doin mine by ear fer like 45 years, but mebbe gittin out my machinist's ruler will facilitate reproducibility, an save me some time, when I tear down one of my axes...

Excellent info, alot of players/beginners don't know this! Thanks, an we'll be see'n ya again! Tahuya Shawn.

Mi experiencia me ha llevado a hacer el ajuste de la altura de los pickup no con medida sino a lo que mi oído me dice. Debe existir una altura tal de la pickup en las strings 6, 5 y 4 hasta que el sonido esté claro (no stratitis) y las strings 1, 2 y 3 si puede estar más alta la pickup hasta que el sonido esté claro y brillante

I am really curious as to why you set up the pickups with distortion on. It destroys the tone balance so you can't really hear what is going on. Surely it would make sense to set them up natural and then final check with the pedals on. I can only think that you guys never get off the distortion.

With the pups that high, your clean sound is fuzzy. Each to his own. Sounded like you were playing through a distortion pedal.

Revisiting this video, I have a method to get to Fender specs for Standard Single coil (5/64 Bass, 4/64 Treble) & Humbuckers (4/64 for both bass & Treble) for Fender guitars. Since 5/64 & 4/64 inch are their manual specs for Bass & Treble sides, a popsicle stick is 1/16 inch thickness (measure to make sure any popsicle sticks are that thickness that you may use), that's the same as 2/32 & 4/64 inch measures. These are the dimensions of the popsicle stick(s) that I use, true measurements with a standard tape measure, 4-1/2" Long x 1/16" Thick. Laying the guitar flat on it's back, one can use 2 of the 3 pickup poles at a time, starting with the neck & middle pickups, lay the popsicle stick flat on the 2 poles, then raise or lower while fretting the last fret so that there is no gap on each side. The repeat that process for the neck & bridge pickups for Bass & Treble. With the guitar pickup heights at Fender specs, it is now ready to tweak in the playing position for more or less pickup height gap as fretted on the last fret.

Those pickups look insanely high to me

when I rebuilt my "Starcaster" 'Strat' electric guitar By: Fender (said it on the head stock from factory) on oredr to do an extreme upgrade/mod to the guitar and finally finished it to my design and expectations I mean really extreme mods and wiring scheme.. I started the setup with adjusting the action as low ans I was comfortable with the the intonation and finally pick up height for the best sounds I could reasonably get.with a custom hand made extended Brushed stainless steel Pick Guard loaded with 3 quad rail/coil Humbuckers and wired it Like a '50's Les Paul with coil splits through the 3 500P audio taper P/P vomume pots and the 2 regular style and the bridge P/P pot also these are 500k audio taper pots all adorned with Tele style Chrome knobs and a chrome switch tip on the Fender 5-way blade stule selector switch.. the P/P volule pots for coil splitting and the P/P in the bridge tome pot for activation of the bridge annd neck P/U regardless of any other control positions.... I used ,047 orange drop caps fot tone. I get real Strat tones out of all this custom wiring that took quite a while to get all situated and soldering all the connections to make it all play well together in there and it sounds a lot better than I expected it to .. I grounded all through the cases to the Stainless steel pick guard as it just worked out that way so ground wiring is minimal as I can get away with,, using that small gage from a salvaged computer VGA cable... I know that the 'traditional size wires are really way to big for the minimal voltage/power that pick-ups make anyway so why use wire bigger than you really need .. that part baffles me. but they used what was available to them at that time. .such as the wire with that cloth insulation in comon use in housing construction back then.. the TV and stereo derived electronics such as the pots and caps regardless of construction that they didn't care about as long as it suited their purposes. sources make the number of these very basic Tele's to be between 3 to 5 examples I don't know the real number... but they were cheap pine altogether and really did play well. as was proven by a visit to the museum where ther live now and played by a You Tube guitar content creator.. lol and they did sound good for what they were made of and how really they were reallly just really old guitas that were never made for sale anyway... like all of the parts they used than the wood was readily available at reasonable low prices.. likie I said 'They used what they could get at a low price as they could... some fo the 'Prototype Fender Telecasters were made of Pine bodies and necks without a truss rod in the neck.. remember that these were prototypes and not really for sale and ai it is with Prototypes they are just proof of concept to begin with and who cares how or even if they work well but for the fact that this is the main idea of what they could become.. so make it cheap and try to make it work somewhat to get the idea and go from ther to make it at as good enough to sell for a decent profit... and they got it all as cheaply as the could to increase the profit margins as well as they could.. the same with all the traditional guitar makers from the '50's and beyond make it as cost effectively as you can to make good proffit too... when the makers should know this as far as the actual power out of the Pick up is in Millivolts so the very small stranded wire i got from that VGA cable was really all i needed in the first place.. handling said small wire was a little tricky to say the least but when I learned how to handle it things went better. and with a small metal pick and a small flat blade screwdriver to guide the wire into place where it was to be soldered I saved a lot of space in the control cavity but looks a real mess and got a fully functional circuit that makes all the right ois4es... lol ... just imagine the variety of tomes you might get from this extensive wiring design/circuit.. in such a guitar.. did I forget the paint scheme that reflects the new name derived from the original mane.. remember that it started out as a "Starcaster" yada yada... now it has been transformed into the "Stellarcaster " to reflect the new name and make it OH So Cool looking , I Painted in a space theme stars and planets over a black and dark blue background for the spacy paint scheme using spray cans some silver micro glitter accented with a light dusting of the dark blue spray paint and custom airbrushed detailing with a semi gloss finish to get a very cool looking beautiful guitar that sounds just as great as it looks.. and even better than expected... Wanna Play???

People complaint on others "personal preference" it shows how lack of playing style they have. and how average they are

Great tips, but muddy amplifier setting didn't help much to hear anything!

Man that is the warmest strat I've ever heard.... almost sound like humbuckers.

Question for a everyone . Have you noticed when you raise the pickups to Fender specks . The tuning on electroic tuner is way more senitive the closer you get to string . What you says Babe ?

You should always use a clean tone to set the pickups height. Overdrive adds compression so you lose the opportunity to hear the volume unbalance of the high vs low strings and of the neck vs middle vs bridge pickup.

Great demo. Dime always said, "Trust your ears"...

Les paul next, please!

I was literally adjusting the pickups on my Strat earlier now this video comes up. Google Home Mini listening? 😯

Erick, you didn't mention whether testing this with clean tone or dirt. I noticed your axe has some distortion. At 3:25, you stated to have your amp set up as you would normally. Just wondering if it mattered. It seems I can tell what my strings are doing better with a clean tone...Great video! Love these tone tips!

I set my pickup heights after the tone and the balance of the three pickups. I dont like the tone of pickups set to high. Having them recessed more gives me a more clear tone and you can balance that little loss of volume on the amp easily.

I usually keep my pickups pretty flush with the pick guard. Neck pickup raise the treble side a little and flat in the middle and the opposite on the bridge as the neck. It seems to make give it a little more clearer sound and make them sound a little more like a vintage low output pickup

I tried to find examples of what a wolf tone sounded like on RU-vid and found nothing. Then here I stumble across your example at 2:56

Low pickups = more dynamic High pickups = more volume ...so , just find the right balance

The best advice so far is to measure your existing heights to begin with , that way you can always go back to that measurement . At the very least , you know where you started at and can adjust from that point , listening to each move until it’s where you like it best