p90 pickup question

ledhed43

what is the proper distance from the pickup to the strings for p90 pickups?

Novawind

Probably depends on the level of output you want. My general suggestion would be 1/16" to 3/32".

harrisonmerwin

buy single coils, adjust them till you like what you hear.

ianvomsaal

Agreed - it all depends on how hot a sound you want. Remember, pickups are adjusted to get the maximum volume and tone out of the strings without interfering with the string movement. Heavy gauge strings vibrate in a wider arc than lighter gauge strings. The pickup should be close enough without affecting the vibration (when set too high, pickups can cause a myriad of inexplicable phenomena because the magnets can actually cause the strings to stop vibrating).
Basically just depress all of the strings at the last fret. Using 6" (150 mm) ruler, measure the distance from the bottom of the 1st and 6th strings to top of the pole piece. Rule of thumb - the distance should be greatest at the 6th string - neck pickup position, and closest at the 1st string - bridge pickup position. The distance will vary according to the amount of magnetic pull of the pickup.
Here's a quick guide from Fender for pickup height.

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Bass Side

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Treble Side
Texas Specials

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8/64" (3.6 mm)---6/64" (2.4 mm)
Vintage style

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6/64" (2.4 mm)---5/64" (2 mm)
Noiseless Series

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8/64" (3.6 mm)---6/64" (2.4 mm)
Standard Single-Coil--5/64" (2 mm)

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4/64" (1.6 mm)
Humbuckers

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4/64" (1.6 mm)---4/64" (1.6 mm)
Lace Sensors As close as desired (allowing for string vibration)

There are two basic pickup types, magnetic pickups and piezoelectric pickups. The latter type work with all kinds of strings (steel, nylon, or gut). Magnetic pickups work only with steel strings, and consist of magnets and coils. Singlecoil pickups are sensitive to magnetic fields generated by transformers, fluorescent lamps, and other sources of interference, and are prone to pick up hum and noise from these sources. Humbucking pickups use two specially configured coils to minimize this interference. Because these coils are electrically out of phase, common-mode signals (i.e. signals such as hum that radiate into both coils with equal amplitude) cancel each other.
Hope this helps - Cheers . . .

- Ian C.T. vom Saal

ledhed43

yea i found some fender setup info with distances strings should be from the pickups on a tele. but this was just to check my friends tele. i play a lp jr. with p90's and cant find similar info. i have adjusted them and i like what i hear i just didnt know if there were any hard numbers to go by. when i got the guitar the poles we screwed all the way in and for a while i never adjusted them and wasnt satisfied with the tone. now i have made several adjustments and found a setup i like. just thought ya'll might know something that works better or best. thanks for the info.

who's_pearljam?

Ian has a good chart up there.

You are right that there isn’t much info on p90 heights, but you can adjust them anywhere.

On most single coil Strat type pickups the polepieces are the magnets. If you adjust them too close to the strings, the magnetic force can pull the string out of tune and give it a funky (Bad funky) overtones called wolfe tones, so they have to be a certain distance away from the string.

Humbuckers and p90’s are built with a bar magnet at the base of the pickup, so you don’t get that pull on the strings and overtone. Humbuckers were basically a double coil p90, invented to help reduce the noise issues.

I usually start p90’s at about 3/16th inch from the string and listen from there. The farther away the pickup is from the string the brighter it will sound and it’ll have less distortion. Closer to the strings, a bit darker and more distortion. I adjust for the "sweet spot". It'll be different on every guitar and even different gauge strings.

Out of all pickups, p90’s are the touchiest feeliest type to me. You can really tweak a lot of sounds out of them with your fingers and playing technique!


Ok, basically , you already did it anyway,,,,, haha, so you didn't need me!