Adjusting Pickup Height for your Guitar or Bass

Here’s a quick tip I found for adjusting the pickups on your electric guitar to help maximize output.

The distance between pickup and string is a very important factor for output and sound.
So for setting the Bridge Pickup:

1. Put a nickel on top of the pickup under the high E string and play the highest note on that string.
2. Adjust the height on that side of the pickup till the string touches the nickel.
3. Repeat the same with the low E string, but use two nickels on top of each other.

If this gives you too much output, you can reduce the height slightly. Don’t forget that twice the distance will reduce the output by about 60%, and the sound will lose some lows. Now, you can go and adjust the neck pickup to match the output of the bridge pickup. For best results use the volume that you normally play at.