Pickup pole height adjustment - do you?

[deeaa]

Since I've used pretty much only actives for over half a decade now, I'm now having some trouble using passives.

If you've seen my earlier post, I think these Dirty Fingers are pretty much on par w/EMG85 on levels and overall sound, but...there's a few things apparent now after a training session. Mostly one: the reproduction of strings is not level.

I use a rather unorthodox string set,9,11,17,32,40,49...so you notice the gap between the D and G strings is no less than .15 which is a way bigger step than usually (2-6-15-8-9). Now with actives the distance to string and such apparently are WAY less important - they reproduce the string sounds very evenly, but with these passives there is aclear difference in the level of D and G now.

Furthermore, the low E string is too bassy now, it's not as tight and actually causes this annoying extra 'grumble' somewhere in the lowest sounds sometimes when playing low, damped but powerful chords like low E.

So to the question...do you address such issues ever by adjusting the polepiece heights?

I just did a 'blind' adjust whereby I lowered the bass side of the PU a little, lowered the low E polepiece just alittle, and lifted up the G string pole 2 turns, B string pole 1 turn. Haven't tested it properly yet, but I'm guessing it'll help with the issue at least some.

Any experience in doing something similar?

[Eric]

I adjust approximately nothing on my guitars, so I'm completely useless. If I can get the truss rod and bridge height right, it's a good day for me.

[marnold]

I've never messed with the pole pieces. The closest I've ever gotten is making the pickup itself a little higher on the treble side.

[Zip]

I've used the info from this page (http://www.ratcliffe.co.za/articles/pickupheight.shtml), with good results. Easy to follow.

[deeaa]

Hm, yeah, it doesn't much go into adjusting individual poles really, but it does suggest that balance issues are lesser with pickups a little lower. Hm. I'll try both I think!

It seems in a a band setting the only real difference between the passive Dirty Fingers and the EMGs seems to be indeed the balance and noise. I found I have to be careful not to play too many strings at once on low notes (meaning I had to use those 2-finger 'heavy metal' barres on low strings instead of all 6 string chords like I usually do) and overall had to compensate for the lack of balance between string volumes and pay more attention to how hard I pick each string/strum chords,or it would become too mushy.

I do understand now why some people say actives are 'colder' than passives - yeah, actives definitely have less rumble and ambient low end material, which can be both good for a little thicker leads with passives, and bad for much less tight low end and clearly ringing chords with actives. I also understand better again why people use those 2-finger barres with more driven sounds.

But, I have hopes I can make the balance better with pickup height/pole pieces adjustment. At least I'll try it the next time. Also lowering the pickups some may make for less of a difference with clean sounds. Or if it seems like a lost cause still/feedback etc. increases too much, I'll just swap 'em for actives.

[Eric]

You know, something you said about differences in a band setting reminds me of a thought I had recently.

You tend to hear a lot of the time that nuances in guitars get buried once everyone is playing at full band volume, negating small things like pickups, etc. But last week I came to the realization that while that might be true for a band that plays classic rock all of the time, my experience is that volumes change a LOT. At times I bash out power chords, but sometimes I'm the only instrument and I'm playing finger-picked stuff.

I guess I just kind of proved to myself that there are times when, even if playing in a loud band, everything will quiet down and you'll notice details in the music. That's the sort of thing I had kind of swept under the rug until recently. Just a thought.

Sorry...random musing. Carry on. :)

[deeaa]

I dunno about the volume, but only in a band setting you tend to notice some nuances of the sound.i.e.like how well does it cut thru,is there some bass that messes with the actual bass or drum frequencies, is there too little mids so it washes out, etc...with all the other sounds blaring you notice things better in contrast to others.

And yeah the volume...I play just the one sound like 85% of the time...I just play softer for clean parts....

[Eric]

Well I agree about cutting and how it sits in the mix and all of that, but there are times when the more subtle details of a guitar tone comes out. Amps and pedals still probably have more to do with it than pickups (I can't say, as I haven't done many pup swaps).

I guess I'd just say that I'm not always blasting full-bore all of the time to where some of the more detailed parts of guitar tone don't matter.

Bear in mind that this is coming from me: a hardcore cheapskate and anti gear snob.

[deeaa]

No, I mean, I agree completely Eric...just meant that even when playing at full blast/drive, there may be some differences only apparent in that situation...sure, using loads of gain and volume usually drowns out subtleties in the sound, but then again, it conversely may reveal a tendency of a pickup for ugly feedback for instance, which might be not apparent with lower volumes and such.

I'm big on volume/intensity change myself, having had most of my crucial music development around the dawn of the grunge era...I want great changes in intensity and style in my band's playing. In fact sometimes I think there's too much, and it becomes really hard to translate that to recording.

Just now I'm mixing drums for our next 3-song demo, and there's a problem with the snare because it changes a LOT in volume...really hard to compress and mix the drums properly when the volume changes so much. But that's how it should be...only, real hard to combine a modern powerful sound and huge changes in the recorded material's volume.

[Eric]

Interesting. I'd never thought about translating intensity to a recording, but I can see how that'd be difficult.

[deeaa]

Yep it's pure hell...like, you have a master compressor and snare compressor going on, making sure things are nice and even..and then the drummer plays a few bars really gently with just gentle pops from the snare...what happens is it either gets completely lost/gated, or the compressors pick it up anyway and it just sounds plain weird, like a mistake being made. Have to somehow keep adjusting the compression at all times to make it sound sensible.

It's way harder than recording a drummer who just slams pop 1/4ths on the snare, this guy, he keeps dropping the stick on the snare for jazzy kind of 'fills' and such constantly...bloody hard to make it sound powerful at times. The polar opposite of programming a drum machine to smack out level steady snare hits!