CJTopes Posted April 17, 2015 Share Posted April 17, 2015 Will lowering or raising PUP height affect the highs and or lows of a guitar? I'm looking at trying to tame some of the high end on my Millie DC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Millennium Maestro Posted April 17, 2015 Share Posted April 17, 2015 Yes, pickup height effects the brightness... but also the output. I suspect you will lower both neck and bridge(Worth trying and letting me know how successful the experiment was) I know what you are dealing with with that maple millie, I have thought of custom ordering a P90 DC to see how it compares tone wise. On the other side, I really like the definition of the Millie DCs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CJTopes Posted April 17, 2015 Author Share Posted April 17, 2015 I love the way the guitar plays,looks and feels it's just that the highs are to harsh. I'm going to lower the pups and try it at the gig tonight.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Millennium Maestro Posted April 17, 2015 Share Posted April 17, 2015 I am excited to see if this works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FredZepp Posted April 17, 2015 Share Posted April 17, 2015 I'd expect adjusting the height to help with the harshness.. I play with the pickup height and the polepiece height when I'm setting up the tone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bolero Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 what pickups are in there? could also try rolling off the tone ctrl a bit....or checking the pot/cap values, maybe you can sweeten it a bit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpuma Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 If your amp has a presence control I found that rolling that back is very effective in that situation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuz Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 A lot can be done to tame highs, very little can be done to "add" them. After you lower the high E side of the pickup (and the pole pieces), You can also add lower value caps (.047 vs .022) and lower value pots (300K or 250K vs 500K). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CJTopes Posted April 20, 2015 Author Share Posted April 20, 2015 I had Duncan Pearly gates put in it. Unfortunately the neck PUP is as low as it goes. The adjuster screws started to come out when I tried to lower the pup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HANGAR18 Posted April 24, 2015 Share Posted April 24, 2015 I had Duncan Pearly gates put in it. Unfortunately the neck PUP is as low as it goes. The adjuster screws started to come out when I tried to lower the pup. Pearly Gates are high output. You might consider installing some SD 59's in it to tame the guitar a bit. (and then sell me the Pearly Gates pickups. hahaha ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Millennium Maestro Posted April 24, 2015 Share Posted April 24, 2015 Pearly Gates are high output. You might consider installing some SD 59's in it to tame the guitar a bit. (and then sell me the Pearly Gates pickups. hahaha ) Pearlys are definitely NOT high output. They are slightly overwound vintage wind with A2 magnets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockabilly69 Posted April 24, 2015 Share Posted April 24, 2015 Drop the pole piece in the body of the pickup, but get the pickup closer to the strings to increase the mids. By lowering the pickup into the ring you are actually making the problem worse. What I recommend is reading this, and try adjusting your pickups all over again from scratch. Do it exactly as he says to start, and learn to listen, then adjust to your own taste. ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Disclaimer: This method of adjusting pickups is per Roy of RS Guitarworks. In a previous thread here's Roy's quote on what this is all about:"My best suggestion is to dial them in with the following steps on an amp set with medium gain (or a good clean Tube amp).start with the pickups very slightly below each ring and starting with the bridge pickup hit the high E open and raise the pickup slowly listening to the note decay. As you come up you will hear a point where the end of the note starts to bloom (or the end of the note starts to get louder as ) keep raising the pickup till you hear that bloom stop then back it back down till it starts again. At that point go to the low E and do the same thing. When the bridge is done move on to the neck listening to the same bloom then you are done. I have never believed there was a magic measurement for pickups, but I'm a firm believer that every pickup has a magic sweet spot."I used two different guitars for this, a Historic LP and a 1962 ES-335 with PAF's. The "medium" gain amp is a '58 5E3 Deluxe. The amp's turned down low, volume's just before 3, the tone's on 10. At this volume, with this amp, the overtones are pretty apparent and there's little additional overtones being added by the amp from using more volume.Any good small tube amp will work for this, it needs to be set kinda bright to hear the "bloom/overtone" thing Roy's talking about.Listen for the end of the note decay. When the strings are too far away, you won't here any change to the sound... it'll just die off in a linear fashion.As the pickup gets closer to being in the right spot, as per "factory settings" you'll begin to here the tone "bloom" and a harmonic will appear as the note decays.When the pickup is in the "sweet spot", you'll hear the note changing from the pure tone to the overtone, it's rather subtle but you should be able to hear it clearly... hopefully!Disclaimer #2! This "bloom" thing happens toward the end of the note's decay... it's subtle and you probably won't hear it with regular computer speakers. Try using headphones or maybe you'll have a set of monitors, for recording, hooked up to your computer.If you don't hear anything, download the clips and burn 'em to a CD for home audio listening... that'll definitely work.Ok, there's two clips for each guitar, one clip per pickup. I'll put the times in for:"Pickup too low"... this is the sound of the pickup even with the rings on both sides of the pickup. For the 335, the "low" setting is 3/32+" away from the strings."Factory"... this setting is the 1/16" away from the depressed E strings. You'll hear some "bloom" and the overtone here. It's not a bad way to go for starters and will usually always get you in the ballpark"Sweet Spot"... this is the sound from finding the most "bloom" and harmonics that I found in each guitar.After the three separate tone samples for each setting, I play a little with the pickup in the "sweet spot"...just noodling around the fretboard to show how the guitar sounds with the pickups setup right.A Deluxe sounds pretty bright/thin and not so good at this setting, so get ready for that. You'll also hear the filaments in the tubes rattling, they do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CJTopes Posted April 29, 2015 Author Share Posted April 29, 2015 Well I wasnt able to do much with PUP height because they are as low as they go. Which is ok because I think the height is fine. I did roll back the presence (a lot) and treble on the amp and it made a world of difference. Using a different amp also helped. Apparently my Millie and my new Rivera dont get along together. But a different Rivera amp made it sound like it used to. I had a killer tone at rehearsal last night.. I may still sell it in favor of a solid block prospect or a es339. But for now it's back in the line up.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Millennium Maestro Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 LIKED Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpuma Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 Well I wasnt able to do much with PUP height because they are as low as they go. Which is ok because I think the height is fine. I did roll back the presence (a lot) and treble on the amp and it made a world of difference. Using a different amp also helped. Apparently my Millie and my new Rivera dont get along together. But a different Rivera amp made it sound like it used to. I had a killer tone at rehearsal last night.. I may still sell it in favor of a solid block prospect or a es339. But for now it's back in the line up.... That is exactly what I had to do with my 357 and the Boogie Mark V. Strangely enough, the same guitar on the Boogie 5:25 did not have the same issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbonesullivan Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 Well I wasnt able to do much with PUP height because they are as low as they go. Which is ok because I think the height is fine. I did roll back the presence (a lot) and treble on the amp and it made a world of difference. Using a different amp also helped. Apparently my Millie and my new Rivera dont get along together. But a different Rivera amp made it sound like it used to. I had a killer tone at rehearsal last night.. I may still sell it in favor of a solid block prospect or a es339. But for now it's back in the line up.... did you try messing much with the pole pieces? I've sometimes had to put pickups at or below the level of the mounting bezel, depending on what sound I am looking for. Right now one of my main guitars is an EBMM Steve Morse, which actually has pickups that are designed to be farther away from the strings than normal to give the desired sound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockabilly69 Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 Well I wasnt able to do much with PUP height because they are as low as they go. Which is ok because I think the height is fine. I did roll back the presence (a lot) and treble on the amp and it made a world of difference. Using a different amp also helped. Apparently my Millie and my new Rivera dont get along together. But a different Rivera amp made it sound like it used to. I had a killer tone at rehearsal last night.. I may still sell it in favor of a solid block prospect or a es339. But for now it's back in the line up.... There's no doubt about it, some guitars just line up great with certain amps! I've said this before, but I think it's better to have more great amps than great guitars, they just bring a wider pallet of tones to the table. Put me on two totally different Les Pauls into the same amp and with a few spins of the tone controls they will sound very similiar, then take one of those Les Pauls and plug it into my Victoria Regal, and then into my Vox AC15, and it will sound like two totally different guitars! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbonesullivan Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 There's no doubt about it, some guitars just line up great with certain amps! I've said this before, but I think it's better to have more great amps than great guitars, they just bring a wider pallet of tones to the table. Put me on two totally different Les Pauls into the same amp and with a few spins of the tone controls they will sound very similiar, then take one of those Les Pauls and plug it into my Victoria Regal, and then into my Vox AC15, and it will sound like two totally different guitars! Completely true, and also utterly frustrating. I've tried for years to find an amp that ALL of my guitars work well with, and I just don't think it's going to happen. I mean, when Leo Fender made the Fender amps, he was thinking of a certain sound, and using Fender guitars for testing. The only amp I have that works with almost every guitar is my Mesa Boogie DC-5. It Just seems to "work". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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