Pickups in a Pickle

[Tim]

My pickups sound weak. This phenomenal seems to affect all my guitars. I suspect it is improper setup. My Strat has single coils. My other two guitars have humbuckers (Seymour Duncan’s). What I mean by weak is after I strike the string, the sustaining tone starts to brake up. The tone does not stay clear until the decays sets in. The tone has a sharp buzz (unrelated to fret buzz)

I can not remember if the humbucker magnet is stronger or weaker than a single coil magnet. But in either case I have raised the pickups to where they are just touching the underside of the strings and then slowly lowering them as I pluck the stings. Before I know it the pickups are level with the body of the guitar without and change in sound. Just how does one hear the “sweet sound” that you read about in the many setup articles written? My strings are electrical 10-42.

[SuperSwede]

Having your pickups too close to the strings can result in a lot of strange sounds.. Perhaps you should try to lower them further?

[Tim]

Thanks Super Swede. I have no proble lowering them. But how far is too far away from the strings?

[Katastrophe]

It could be a combination of things, but the Swede is correct. When I get a new guitar (which hasn't been for quite some time), I lower the pickups even with the pickup ring (or as low as it can go in the absence of one) and raise each one slowly in between playing for a bit. You should be able to hear a change in tone/volume with your amp turned up to a reasonable listening level. If it's whisper quiet you may not notice anything.

AFAIK, there's not a set pickup level that's considered optimum, other than just plain ol' subjective personal preference...

If you do all that and you're getting a noticably weaker signal from the pickup, either the pickup is headin' south on ya, you've developed a short or a solder joint is working loose.

[SuperSwede]

Could be what Katastrophe says, just ask Tone2thebone. He has a humbucker that only has one working coil. It must be the easiest way to mount a single coil in a standard LP

[Tinky-Winky]

I don't think this is to do with your guitars. The Vox AD30VT has a noise gate which (especially when set high) will make a note break up in the way that you describe. I can stand some noise, and so I have the noise gate turned off, as I hear a slight tonal difference even with a low noise gate setting. To turn it off, press the bypass button so that the red L.E.D. is on, and then hold down the tap button and turn the edit 1 knob all the way anti-clockwise. Though this setting will be remembered in manual mode, in preset mode the noise gate setting resets whenever the amp setting is changed.

[Cranium]

The height has nothing to do with that, unless its super close, probably something was done wrong when it was put in or like Tinky said maybe its the amp, does this happen with all the pickups on the guitar?

[Tinky-Winky]

Tim, have you attempted to turn down the noise level? I am curious to see if it helped.

[Tim]

Tim, have you attempted to turn down the noise level? I am curious to see if it helped.

Hello TW - I have been down for the past week with the flue. I have not picked up a guitar since last Tuesday. I will experement with the gate first chance.

[Tinky-Winky]

Sorry to hear of your illness, hope you get better soon!

[ibanez_freak36]

Hey Tim, just an idea but superswede is right, your finding the sound of a humbucker different, thats because of its double wound around the magnet. With the 2 wraps of copper wire it pulls 2 times the polarity and that is why it sounds weak to you. Maybe lowering them is a start if that does not work for you try an active Duncan single or a Dimarzzio single active, that will boost the sound, but being active it may buzz a little, try it it may work for you....................the freak

[SuperSwede]

I have been down for the past week with the flue.

Its not the bird flu I hope...

I hope you feel better soon!