Installing and Set-ups
Strat style or 3 pickup configuration:
I have a method for adjusting strat pickups which seems work
really well. I learned it from Richie Blackmore's Guitar tech
many years ago, when I had to help him set up guitars he was
buying for some Deep Purple Tour. He told me "this is
how Hendrix set up his strats" but Hendrix's tech told
me " Jimi set his own guitars up." He did not remember.
On Strats it seems that the the Low"E" side of the
pickups has a lot to do with the tone. The height of the bass
side of the pickups changes the character of the sound. The
height of the treble side of the pickups changes the attack.
* Install the pickups
* Solder the connections
* Raise the bridge pickup to" 1/8 from the high "E"
string
* Raise the Bridge pickup side to" 1/4 from the low "E"
string
* Place the selector switch in the 2nd position (or between
the bridge and middle position)
* Raise the middle pickup to" 3/16 from the high "E"
string
* Raise the middle pickup to" 1/4 from the low "E"
string
* Now adjust the low "E" side of the middle pickup
while playing a little, try to get the most
"quack" and phase in the sound. You may have to
lower and raise both the bridge pickup and the middle pickup(on
the bass side) until you can get a tone that is really "
quacky".
* Now place the position switch in the 4th position between
the middle and the neck position
* Raise the high "E" side to about 3/16 from the
string
* Now adjust the low "E" side while you are playing,
try to get the most out of phase "Quacky " sound
you can get. You may have to adjust and tweak the treble side
and the bass side's of the other pickups.
* When you have the 2 and 4 position sounding the way you
want , you should have the guitar voiced so that all the positions
have a distinctive sound.
Tele set ups
* Install pickups
* Solder connections (this is for a wiring pattern that uses
both pickups in the middle position , not for early Tele wiring)
* Raise the bridge pickup to 3/16 on the high "E"
side
* Raise the bridge pickup to 1/4 on the low "E"
side
* Place the selector switch in the middle position
* Adjust the neck pickup height until you can a distinct blend
of the pickups
* Now check the sound on all three positions and they should
be 3 distinct sounds with character.
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