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Post by ninworks on Jan 24, 2024 9:14:07 GMT -5
I have a Gibson Custom Shop CS356. It's basically an ES335 design with a smaller body. The neck pickup is not parallel to the strings but is kind of on the same plane as the fingerboard. It sits at such an angle where the neck-side of the pickup is lower than the opposite side. Is there any advantage to having it parallel to the strings? The mounting ring is tapered so I might be able to turn it around and make it parallel or at least closer to that than it is. I Photoshopped the image to see what it would look like if I just turned the ring around and it's pretty close. i.postimg.cc/vZHZCggX/CS356-Neck-PU-Angle.jpgi.postimg.cc/yx2Bpc6R/CS356-Neck-PU-Angle-2.jpg |
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Post by Leftee on Jan 24, 2024 10:12:20 GMT -5
As an experiment I would wedge a wood shaving between the pickup and the ring to hold the pickup parallel to the strings. Play it for a while to see if you perceive a difference.
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Post by Larry Madsen on Jan 24, 2024 11:06:48 GMT -5
As a side note: The neck PUP (Filtertron) on my current build is situated similarly.
I'll be interested in how you deal this.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Jan 24, 2024 11:13:03 GMT -5
My Epi 335 neck pickup is exactly as the first picture. Being that the pickup ring has that taper I suppose that's the design. Is there an imbalance between pickups or is it just a cosmetic thing? I usually find the neck pickup on a H/H guitar can easily overpower the bridge pickup without some adjustment to raise the bridge pickup, not the other way around.
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Post by ninworks on Jan 24, 2024 17:13:14 GMT -5
I haven't noticed it sounding bad or weak. It sounds great, it just looks weird. One of these days soon I need to restring a bunch of guitars. When I do I will flip it around and see if I can hear any difference. I suspect that if it made much of a difference Gibson wouldn't have made it that way, BUT it is Gibson after all. I think some of their design criteria is that since they have always done it that way why change. I have checked with 2 different and very experienced guitar techs and the comments were split. One thought it would help with the sound and one didn't. I'm just going to have to try it and see if I can hear any difference.
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Post by Larry Madsen on Jan 24, 2024 18:51:48 GMT -5
The PUP certainly does appear a bit closer to parallel with the strings in the second PIC.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Jan 25, 2024 10:07:27 GMT -5
The Les Paul I have has 2 P90's. Ken, don't you have an older LP? Curious how the neck pickup is seated on that guitar. Either way it'll be interesting how it turns out. |
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Post by ninworks on Jan 25, 2024 12:07:44 GMT -5
The Les Paul I have has 2 P90's. Ken, don't you have an older LP? Curious how the neck pickup is seated on that guitar. Either way it'll be interesting how it turns out. I have a 2013 60's Tribute Gold Top Les Paul with Burstbuckers on it and the neck pickup on it is parallel to the strings. It also has a wedge-shaped pickup ring but it's not as tall as the one on the 356. |
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Post by Larry Madsen on Jan 25, 2024 21:41:03 GMT -5
I made an adjustment.
Your thread here was very timely … for me.
I pulled my front ring and eliminated the slope.
My front PUP now sits level front to back and i believe it is a better situation.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Jan 27, 2024 11:08:49 GMT -5
Pickups being parallel to the strings does make them sound better. At what point do we say "meh, close enough" for the sake of tone, I'm not exactly sure. Yours is probably "close enough". You hear the difference most with something like an SG where humbuckers are mounted to a pickguard. If you take a lot of time monkeying with those to get them parallel (pain in the butt), you do hear a difference. Tele cork sniffers have played around with their bridge pickups like this, too.
It is probably just too much work for a company to make rings of enough variety to always get it right. I would love to have seen three-point or four-point height adjustment become more common, but c'est la vie.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Jan 27, 2024 16:11:06 GMT -5
To me it seems reversing the pickup so that the poles are farther away from the fretboard would have the most likely impact on sound.
Edit: But we're just talking about reversing the ring, right?
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Post by ninworks on Jan 27, 2024 16:43:46 GMT -5
To me it seems reversing the pickup so that the poles are farther away from the fretboard would have the most likely impact on sound. Edit: But we're just talking about reversing the ring, right? Yup. |
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