Tips on setting your pickup height! - Never have your guitar sound thin or muddy again

20 bucks osciloscope.
Set height to the loudest setting
Done

Wait so, do single coils ever get potted? Or humbuckers only? Or pickups with a cover on them?

There is a "sweet spot" for both pickups for each string. If you find it it will really wake the guitar up big time. Both pickup heights drastically effects the tone of the other pickup aswell. There is a way to find those exact heights but it takes a good bit of time usually. If you find the exact spot you'll get a little boost of mids in the tone and you'll feel more vibration in the guitar body. The magnetic pull on the strings has a huge effect on tone if you get it exactly right. If you find the right spot, the bridge pickup will be slightly higher than the neck pickup. There is only ONE best height for both and it doesnt matter what genre music either.

DONT YOU GET TIRED ,PLAYING THE SAME TONEFOR TEN MINUTES.

Man when you raised the pickups, that was sounding like some scary shit haha the increase in volume is nutty

This is a really good video because it describes the difference in sound between high set pick ups and low set pick ups, rather than just showing how to set them up.

The amp setup is something hard for me to get a tone I like. Is there any video addressing it?

Good video. I'm assuming those initial pickup height measurements were taken without fretting the strings at the last fret because they seem awfully low. I have a couple Gibson LP's, an R9 and an R0, both with Custombuckers. They are lower wind pickups with very weak A3 magnets. Due to the weak magnets, you can and pretty much have to adjust them fairly close to the strings to get anything out of them unless you prefer an anemic tone. They are set close right from the Custom Shop.

For humbucker equipped guitars, I generally set the pickup height equal distance from the low-E and high-E strings and then fine tune the individual string output with the pole-piece screws. For single coil pickups , I generally set the pickup height to be 1-2 64's of an inch higher on the high-E than on the low-E. The pole-pieces are usually pre-staggered on single coil pickups to balance the string output.

Great video but there is one tip here I would argue against. It doesn’t make sense to set your pickups to different heights to get that two levels of drive for rhythm vs lead. Just lowering the volume control on the neck pickup will achieve the same thing. Ideally you want to balance the output of the two pickups so that you have a good middle position tone. If you have the neck pickup too much lower than the bridge, the middle position will just sound like the bridge position, or if you have the bridge pickup too much lower than the neck, the middle will just sound like the neck position.

Same here ..

Magnets don’t hear wood friend. When you hit the guitar you make the components of the pickup rattle and make sound.
They rattle because there is no wax to keep the parts together.
Magnets picking up wood sounds is guitarded..😫😫

Magnets don’t capture the sound of the strings.
The movement of the strings excites the magnetic field and it gets transformed into electricity.
Pickups PICKUP movement not sound.

I know that people in the field are guitarded so don’t worry 👍

I bought a lightly used 2014 Les Paul R8 VOS in 2018. When I first plugged in and played, it sounded great... after noodling around a bit more, I found that the difference in tone from bridge to neck pickups was a bit lacking. The prior owner had cranked up the pickup heights, possibly because some people think "more is better".

Lowering them both to a proper, balanced height really opened up the airy, 'woody' tone that should be in the neck pickup on a vintage LP and not the 'wooly', muddier tone of later year, higher gain LPs. The bridge went from a bit too hot to a classic "Telecaster on Steroids" bright, bighting tone and the balance between the Bridge and Neck was perfect while the tonal differences were as broad as the day is long.

I can't help but think that the last owner might have done this chasing a tone they didn't find in that direction (which some people do, almost counterintuitively) or they just didn't like the vintage LP tone vs. the later year 80's distortion that called for higher gain tones and hotter pickups. Once readjusted, it was as an instant heirloom LP that has 'that sound' I had in my head from the egde-of-breakup blues and overdriven classic rock tones I'd heard and preferred all my life.

If you have a tool to measure string and pickup heights, don't be afraid to experiment - you can always return 'home' - and definitely challenge yourself if you've been told to raise the pickup heights to get a hotter sounding pickup as you'll be leaving behind qualities you can't regain elsewhere in the signal chain.

Definitely love it raised on the strat

interesting - lowered LP: more clarity, lowered Strat: just less balls.

Pure gold

Gibson didn’t start potting pickups til the early 70’s. I hate wax on my pickups. I wind PAF style buckers and they get NO wax!

Higher is bigger and louder, easy choice lmao, only problem is yiu may hit the pickup more often and if it gets too close it starts magneting the strings lmao

As a Owner of a highly flamed Les Paul in Iced tea burst just like the 58 i this vid at the end of the day the 58 plain top has its own special allure! The more i see the PT's the more i like them.👍

Those are good tips that many guitarists seem to be unaware of. Humbuckers often have adjustable screw posts that can be raised or lowered to balance the volume between strings. In addition, raising the screw posts can add clarity, brightness, and enhance articulation. While lowering them produces a warmer, rounder tone.

Always remember to take measurements from your pickups to the bottoms of your strings before you start, so you can easily return them to that position if you're not happy with the results. Also, small adjustments, 1/4 to 1/2 screw turn can make a big difference in tone.