I've been doing this for years and it works wonders. I can't believe we live in an age where players are so ignorant that they'd replace a pickup before trying an adjustment of height and poles.
The first guitar player I saw doing this was Ritchie Blackmore. He did it on his famous ES 335 and the best example of THAT sound is the solo on 'Child In Time' from the Deep Purple In Rock album. I have never heard before such a vocal neck humbucker and such a cutting bridge humbucker. Simply sublime!
I lower the pup and raise the screws like in this video on the neck pup of my Les Paul. Been doing it for years. Definitely clears up the mud especially when using a fair amount of distortion. I usually set the bridge pup on it pretty much standard. I find this works best with Les Paul neck pups
this worked really well on my hexbolt bucker bridge pickup on my cheap Ibanez. even though the height was set by me before they sounded like ass on every amp setting. Now they’re ever so slightly twangy and chimier than my McCarty.
Every morning, when Johan is waking up, the first thing he's thinking is: How on earth could I mess with guitar components today, in the way nobody ever mess or even think about?
That really makes those pickups bark! I love when I get notification of a new video from you Johan. Highlight of my otherwise boring day! Keep up the great work brother finding new ways to amaze us :-)
been doing this for years :) If they're adjustable, I'll adjust them I find it works well for neck humbuckers especially on dark guitars, and if you back the pickup height off quite a bit.
A similar test I have tried is to remove all six screws. Then only one coil is recording input from the strings, but both is used for the humbucking part. That sounds even more like a single coil, but with cancelation.
the same effect can be achieved shortening the screws a bit as Neil Shon did on his Les Paul during Journey era. The pickup will be brighter sounding because the magnetic pull does'nt travel as far when it's shortened by the shorter travel length of the screws you just cut down.
The proper way of adjusting pole pieces and humbucker height is as follows: Bring the height fairly close to the strings. Back off a bit with the heavier/lower strings. Now hit the low E and the A separately while slowly lowering the height- you will be listening on a totally CLEAN amp setting for the "wah wah wah" string sound that you hear when you are coming close to being in tune while tuning a string. As you go further away, that wah/hum gets smoother and more stable. When it stabilizes, the magnets are no longer pulling the string so hard it fucks with intonation and harmonics. Do the same with the high strings. You can move up to the D or G string if you have to, if it is too difficult to hear the wah/hum. Now, go individually across strings and string jump, also testing natural harmonics, and listen to the volume level of each string- THE POLE PIECES CONTROL THE VOLUME OF THEM. It does NOT go by fretboard/string radius as most luthiers and manufacturers have believed. It will vary guitar to guitar/humbucker to humbucker, depending on your tremolo/nut, string type/gauge, and individual humbucker (no 2 are the same). The final result will most likely be a staggered D-E and then staggered again e-G. The E and G will most likely be right at or BELOW the humbucker surface! You need to keep in mind the CORE size of the strings. THAT is what the magnetic field is pulling, NOT the winding around them. After setting the volume/poles, test AGAIN the height using the same method above, and then raise it back up ONE HALF TO ONE TURN OF THE SCREWDRIVER, NO MORE. NOW your poles and height are correct... Check your intonation and set it properly (for the first time ever if you have never set your humbuckers and poles properly- the magnetic field interfered with intonation). You're welcome
Fatal Heart Rhythm how did any famous artists make it without doing this exact procedure? Pardon my sarcasm but I think we get too caught up in the finite details about tone and we fool ourselves into thinking there is a correct way of doing it. There’s not. I believe you know exactly what you’re talking about, and your method makes perfect sense to me. That’s all good and proper, but you’re acting like it’s holy knowledge or something. I know many great players with crazy ideas about pickup height and pickups in general, and they sound incredible (and intonated). Like Frusciante or Dimebag. Gotta stay open to different ideas, you know? You’re welcome.
Interesting topic, to my ears it's a thinner, slightly telecaster style tone. Still very nice though! Would be useful to repeat this with the neck pickup for comparison :) You continue to put a lot of thought & work to your videos and it's very much appreciated. x
Yes, that's true. Singlecoils tend to sound thin and weak, but I really love their dynamics. I really like having a P90 in the neck position, but sometimes it sounds kinda weak and hums and buzzes like hell! So, it would be nice to have a neck humbucker with singlecoil dynamics... I guess I'm going to try this "mod" soon.
+CreamFreshCream I don't think P-90's sound thin at all, just less focused on the lowest tone frequencies. I have a '69 SG Special that is very full. In fact, it's just what one would expect from it - plenty of nastiness and sting but less low end to cancel out the glorious mids and high mids. P-90's are more versatile, though you have to be careful with the single coil hum.
I didn't really say that P90s are thin I rather referred to Strat/Tele pickups. I agree with you that they are full sounding and have that midrange bark that no other pickup has. However, I think they are not as powerful as most humbuckers and that's why they can sometimes sound a bit weak with overdrive... On the other hand some overdrive pedals just shine with P90s. I also agree that they are more versatile than humbuckers, because while they sound great distorted, they sound brilliant when played clean, too! But as you said, they hum a LOT, much more than Strat pickups for instance and hum-canceling/noiseless P90s lack those dynamics that I love! Thanks for your advice, Larry!
The playing ,gear, but most of all the tone you get from your fingers surprises me everytime. I'm expecting a different tone most times so it's a real treat. By far the best monster tone and gear channel on UA-cam
Amazing, it works. Even a 1/3 of yours hight actually works really fine. My Les Paul neck pickup got much more dynamics and "air", its not so dark anymore, especially on clean side.
Nice! Make sense, cos one coil is taking all the sound because of the height of the pole pieces and the other is there to cancel the hum. So yes, only one coil is taking almost all the sound. Very good tip
That’s a great idea. It’s a similar tone to asymmetrical wound coils which I really like. I’ve always been a fan of mini humbuckers for the same reason, they have the dynamics, clarity and balance of a single coil but with the mids of a humbucker.
Perhaps the magnetic sensing field being tighter (what I assume is happening here and on minis based on physical observation) is the key to clarity, and possibly why stacked humbuckers (noiseless single coils) sound SO damn close to _actual_ single coils.
You just solved a mystery about why my hs filtertrons sound so spanky compared compared to my pafs. The poles are raised about 5mm above the pup. Good stuff my man!
I've tried this trick before, it really helps with muddy pickups or pickups that are a little too dark. Adds a bit of clarity and lowers the output a bit. Great video as usual!
I've had my pickup like this for years now, at first I did this so it looked like I'd taken off the cover, so it would've seemed like I didn't just have the stock cheap pickups on my epi, but then it sounded awesome so I just left it like that forever
You can also remove the poll pieces all together, and raise the pickup back up to get even more single coil type sounds. Sounds like the next video idea.
I do this on the neck pickup of all my HH guitars. But i remove the screws completely and flip the pickup, so that the studs are closest to the neck. Sounds almost like a stacked single coil :)
Thank You, Johan! Really cool idea, never thought of what happens if pole pieces are taken to extreme. Thanks to this video, I can, for the first time, use bridge pickup for other tones than distortion. Never liked clean bridge tones before.
I sometimes do this on the bass end of neck humbuckers to try to get a lighter tone in the bottom strings: I put the whole pickup at an angle bass lowered treble normal, pole pieces raised on the bottom strings to compensate. Can work quite well but you have to be careful the poles don't vibrate loose when they stick out like that!
Over the years this how I adjust my PAF on a Les Paul, First set truss rod, get your string height set, now your ready, take the screws on the front pu turned down flush if possible,then raise the height of the pu until the low and high E touch the bottom of the string then do the same with the others turning the screws up to just touch, then you have just matched the radius of your neck, do the same with the bridge pu. 2. Now lower your pickups to the desired Height, just make sure none of your strings are to close to the string as they will pull them down, Gibson recommends 1/16th on the High E and the low 3/32inch. Measure from the bottom of the string to the top of the screw. This a good place to start. Thanks Johan, it took a long time to get this information
I'm glad you liked it, it works for me, to get a even sound, and you can know its right, one guy at the Gibson custom shop would set the heads in v shape to each other once they're set.
Wouldn't that make B and G string a bit louder than the rest of the strings? Since I got my first Kinman pickups, I have always staggered the poles the way he does. It just works the best and the string volumes are quite even. So when you strum a chord you will hear all the strings (depends on your pickup , well) and it will be richer. Basically A and D poles are raised since those are the most quiet strings , G and B are lowered as they are the loudest, E and e pretty much stay at the same height. You can then raise them all by half turns and adjust the tone you like. Try it. For more info you can go to Kinman and see the setup he uses.
Thank you so much! My Les Paul neck pickup was a bit boring, bassy and undynamic. Now it´s definately better. In fact it sounds more like a classic PAF which often are more dynamic and single coil-sounding than most modern humbuckers. Great!
Yes! I don't know if you had read my comment a couple months back about this being a regular practice of mine Johan, glad to always see you experimenting! The way I do it is I slant the pickup with the treble side as close as I can get it to the unwound strings to give the fullest sound to the lighter strings as possible, then start raising pole pieces according to taste from there and varying the slant of the pickup. Can get some pretty awesome sounds! I've been really hooked on Instrumental Pickups...they have a PAF type Alnico II p/u called the "Comet Duster" which is amazing and responds excellent to adjusting the pole pieces. You can find them on Facebook, the owner Ethan Spaulding is the best and really great to work with! Keep on with the ideas Johan!
Johan Segeborn way to keep searching for ways outside of the box! Glad I can help out wherever I can! Warning though, ever since I started adjusting my pole pieces I've never gone back to just regular humbucker settings! Haha...it's especially kind of funny when I'll be in Guitar Center and I find a guitar I'm starting to dig I'll get one of my small screwdrivers when the associate aren't looking(I'm an alarm tech so I'll have small screwdrivers on me and in between appointments I'll stop into guitar stores) and I'll start adjusting pole pieces and slanting the P/U like I was saying! Haha...one time you shoulda saw the reaction of one of the associates when I got done playing a guitar and I didn't put it back to stock...The guy IMMEDIATELY ran it over to the guitar tech like, "WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS!!" I didn't say anything and just walked out before he freaked out more...it's like dude, they can be screwed back in! But alot of people won't look outside the box like you're doing Johan. Rock on
I've got an old WESTONE that has 2 humbuckers with 12 adjustable HEX pole pieces and I've found you can get quite a difference in tone by adjusting them away from the standard two sets of 6 all the same height - interesting video thanks for the time / effort
Great vid as always Johan! I've always supported this idea, since I've played the infamous Duncan JB stock AND tweaked. The difference is just huge. The stock JB is muddy when playing chords, and single notes won't shine nicely as well. But when the pole screws are tweaked a bit (and the pickup height is set properly as well) it becomes A LOT clearer, articulate and more singing. Also, if I may suggest another interesting idea, maybe for a new vid of yours, nice results can be obtained by waving a neodymium disc close to a pickup bobbin (with matched polarity, S-S or N-N), which essentially degausses a pickup magnet. It works with Alnico pickups only (Ceramics are too strong magnets to obtain noticeable results), but it helps givin a vintage-y vibe and smoother sound to modern pickups. Also, it's easily reversible by flippin the disc to the opposite polarity. Nice effects on my JB for sure.
+Fabrizio Zado Donadelli Thanks Fabrizio, that's an interesting idea. I actually thought of doing a similar clip, but for speakers. I'm definitely gonna try this too now! Cheers Johan
Don't try demagnetising pickups, it tends to not end well and is hard to reverse. Alnico 2 and 5 sound different because the alloys they're made of have a different permiability which affects inductance (the key electrical property of pickups that governs frequency response) and eddy current behaviour. It's quite easy to swap an alnico 2 for an alnico 5 magnet. Or either for ceramic. You can also experiment with a thinner magnet and a steel spacer strip.
There’s a video on here of Slash’s AFD Les Paul getting the pickups re potted at the Seymour Duncan factory, The set up on the pickups is very similar. Now that’s out of the way.... great video as always. Thanks for taking the time to do all these... some of the best on UA-cam.
I already do something like this but not so exaggerated. I just drop the pu by a few mm and raise the pole pieces about 2mm but vary the height to balance the string outputs. Brightens up the humbuckers just nicely.
I'm guessing because humbuckers are usually wired to go from north to south in series, the north coil is picking up very little and therefore phasing out less that it would if the coils were even.
I really dig your channel!! Its really cool how you exeriment with tones and all that you do! Have been waching your videos in like 3 months or so, really enjoy them! Keep it up!
I have been adjusting my PP's since the 80's You tilt the pickup and/or adjust the pole pieces on the higher strings so their voltage is nearer equal to the heavier strings as well when you bend the subtle signal loss(drop-out) is not as great. This why some custom makers use blades for telecasters As well as to compensate for a guitar with a strong radius You turn up the screws very little. This is tuning your pickup it is truly a lost art. . You may have to adjust the treble and/or presence control this way the source (pickup) does it's job and you rely less on compensating with the amps tone controls. So many aspects of guitar tone are getting lost in these days of too much gain. As well you dont crank the screws out and have to lower the pickup though i appreciate you did this in the video on purpose
I've looked at these pole screws many times and wondered what would happen... but I've never tested adjusting them. Thank you very much for showing this, now I don't have to do it because I didn't really like the tone. :-) Thank you! :-)
Glad to see you've found this little secret. I've been using those screws for a couple of years now. Try a Strat 'stagger' on the screws and put the two coils in parallel for some Strat-Quack (relative bobbin strength from hight differences are important to dial maximum quack). I do this on the neck humbuckers for cleans and light drive, while leaving Bridge alone for distortion. Next compare the 'high screws' mod + rotate the pickup 180 degrees.
There's something I do in conjunction with, or instead of is install the pickups upside down. I've done it to the neck pickup on one of my semihollows, and a temporary thing to the bridge on my Les Pauls until I replaced the pickups in it. It only works with humbuckers that have mismatched winding, and bigger the difference, the more noticeable the effect. The coil with the adjustable poles is usually the one with the higher winding, and is the dominant vol of the two. I first thought is it after doing a pickup installation on someone's PRS Custom 22 & 24. I installed a set of Wagners in them; both with Darkburst-N/Godwood-B, same specs. The neck pickup in the 24 is much brighter then the 22 (as all 24-fret guitars are do to the fact that to fit the 2 extra frets necessitates moving the neck P.U closer to the bridge, which brightens it by moving it closer the the bridge as well s moving it out from under one of the harmonic segments of the string).I first did it on an ES-335 that had a custom wound set of Fralins. There was a regular PAF in the bridge, but the neck PU was wound to sit between a PAF and the Fralin "Unbucker." The Unbucker basically starts with a PAF, but leans into the "asymmetric winding" thing that PAFs have. I don't know the exact specs, but if a normal PAF has one coil with 500 more winds that the other, the Unbucker has 1000. It's meant for darker sounding guitars that you want to be brighter, or many use one in the bridge in a Strat that would normal be SSS, or in the neck of a Tele. Initially I wanted a brighter tone in the neck for a couple things I was recording. I at first was doing what's done in this video by dropping the whole coil, then raising the slugs back to where the pickup normally was. The issue I had was that I actually wanted the compression that it normally has with the HB it's normal height. I was changing the strings and right after I put the Low E on, I got a call from the owner of the PRS' asking about coming down to get them from me. As soon as I hung up,I loosened the Low E and went about flipping the neck pickup around so the coil with the slugs was on the bridge side as opposed to the neck side. That little change in the position of the over wound coil was so close to what I was going for when I was lowering the coil, that I only had to drop the pickup and raise the slugs about 1/4 of the distance of the way I had lowered it initially when dropping the pickup height. A few months later I bought a Les Paul from someone with a set of PAFs in it. The PAFs were good (I actually have them in another Guitar now), but I found the bridge to be too thin for my taste (a typical thing with the bridge position on LPs. A few months later I put in Cherrybuckers that have a little more body to them. I probably would have replaced then sooner if I kept the pickups that it came with installed normally, but flipping it around and having the hotter coil further towards the neck removed enough of the thinness that I wasn't thinking (Christ, I have to change this pickup) Everytime I played it. Again, YMMV depending on the way the pickup is wound. And no, despite all the places online that describes the "out-of-phase" sound of Peter Green's 59 Burst came about by accidentally installing the pickup upside-down, it will NOT cause this it happen (in reality, that came from removing the magnet out of the pickup and putting it back in flipped).
I have an Epiphone LP Custom (3 humbuckers) with the Epi Alnico Classics. If you do a quick search, the usual comments are "too hot", "too much output", "too much wax" (this one is true, wax comes out when you adjust the pole pieces), but with some height/pole adjustments, they sound pretty good tbh. I do like to mess with the volume/tone so I still have to figure out how to do a vintage wiring for 3 volume pots & master tone so I can blend in the middle pup in whatever usual LP mode.
Hi! Once upon a time, some models of some guitar brands -like Framus- had round 5 way switches. I don't know is it hard or easy to find today. But they can solve your problem.
I have seen musicians/techs install extra switches in many types of guitars. You have to make a new hole. I mean if you can't fine a 5-way sw. that is made for the LP, then you can fit a 5-way sw if you really have to have one. I was not saying it would be easy. But I get your point.
Or you can use a Bill Lawrence q filter. It puts another coil in series with your pickup, so when you raise the value of the q filter, it changes the resonant peak of the pickup as well as gives the impression that coils are being bled off, giving a single coil type sound. It is very subtle at first, but when you get used to it, it really makes a difference. With the coil all the way down, it's effectively out of the circuit, and all the way up, it makes the pickup sound almost like a piezo pickup. (Pay close attention to the wiring guide to make sure you wire it in correctly or else it won't work.)
Johan, I am just like you. I have been playing for over 30 years and have never turned any of the screws on any of my humbucker guitar's pickup adjustment screws.I just got back to the computer after watching the first 5 minutes of this video then playing around with my 70's Starfire for about 3 hours using this pickup adjustment technique (both pickups). The guitar is what I guess would be called "vintage-sounding", which I guess means dark (covered tones, very present in the low-mids, especially the neck pickup) with a soft-attack (which maybe means low-output?). I was hoping that it would brighten the guitar up a bit, but it didn't. I will say there were two immediately beneficial outcomes. I was able to REALLY balance the output across the individual strings, and I was able to both play a LITTLE bit quieter, AND still play AS LOUD, if that makes any sense. Would you say this added something like 20% more dynamic range to your Les Paul? Was there anything you didn't like about this configuration? I love your work, my friend.
My experiments resulted in way more attack, like the attack knob on a compressor being turned up when polepieces out, and turned down or off when polepieces flat. In the end to get the most even response and pleasing sound, I opted to leave them completely flat equal height in the bobbin. So basically, after all experiments, I thought it ultimately sounded best the way it came stock. Definitely more even string volume. That plucky attack sound definitely runs its course pretty fast, but might be useful in a mix for something different every now and then. Single coils just do it so much better.
Ever scince I was a child I tinkered with stuff.... and have been adjusting pole pieces for a long time...not quite to that extent...which does sound very good.... I actually turn my pick ups around were the screw poles are both in middle and use them to fatten the bridge and define the neck..love the sound of a neck bucker set very low and the poles raised to harmonic offset with the other coil...very P90 ish but with a weird kinda strat tone at the same time... I am a self proffessed tone GURU...
Moving traditional pole pieces with a big head out of the coil dramatically reduces the inductance. The effect is electronicly similar to reducing the number of turns of wire in the coils. It's quite deterministic and controllable. It doesn't work very well on super-distortion style pickups with set screws as their profile is fairly consistent along their length, if anything screwing them out does the opposite and makes the sound darker as you're moving hollow section from the top of the coil and replacing it with solid section from the bottom of the coil.
I consider adjusting the bobbin and pup height to be an essential part of setting a up a guitar. In fact, if I was doing a jazz gig I would recess the bobbin and bring the pup up on the neck. If I was doing something requiring a fender sound would recess the pup and raise the bobbin massively.
Would like to have heard the neck like that. Some neck humbuckers are muddy, and I think that might be the remedy. I raised the G-B-E on mine slightly last week, now I’m thinking of going drastic.
Never change, bro. This stuff is great. And when I say never change, I mean don’t become a sellout like half of these other “successful” guitar UA-camrs. Cheers!
Great stuff Johan ...yep does give wider 'open' range and great for cords, but you do loose than 'fat' humbucker thud!...have tried this by following the stepping pattern seen on fender strats ...and yes great for cords but always have gone back to spec...happy with the big thud !
Recently I was just thinking if it was not time to try a guitar with single coils, as I really liked some overdriven P90 and fendery sounds, but not the pickup noise. Now I can try to incorporate some of it in my SG :) Thanks Johan. Killer playing as usual, rock on!
First thing I did after changing to cobalt slinky 8-38 was adjust my pole pieces up and down like vintage fenders but with the wounds higher and the G being lowest in the same way the bridge intonation was set.
I’ve been experimenting with this on my new Tonerider Birmingham set. Right now after starting with the two E poles at 1/32” above the bobbin, I make the normal 1/16” treble side and 3/32” bass side height from strings at the highest fret adjustment. Then I raise the other pole pieces to match the curvature semi-staggered. That is, the E-A-D poles 3/32” away and G-B-E poles 1/16” away. Sounding good so far but I may experiment to find more optimal pole heights. Not sure if it can be measured electronically.
Gotta say with the pole pieces adjusted out and pickup slammed down definitely had a spank to it with a low output humbucker sound, depending on what you were playing. Good demo Johan, gives a very clear contrast on timber adjustment
Hi Johan - I noticed at the Stones Exhibitionism event, lots of Keith's 60's Les Pauls (including the famous 'Sympathy' triple hum Black Beauty) had the same arrangement on the neck pickup - ie overall height down and pole pieces up. Also, there are some clips of Peter Green with the original Fleetwood Mac where he has the bass end of the humbucker screwed right down into the cavity and the pole pieces staggered upwards to compensate...;
Try to remove the pole pieces the tone will surprise you, tried this in my Epi LP Special II because the pups where to muddy for my taste just a tip cover the holes with black tape to keep dust off the wax in there.
Thanks for your videos. I really like your tone and playing. I googled this as I want to share my pole piece adjustment ‘journey’ with y’all. I bought tonerider alnino 2 set for an old Samick les Paul. They sound really good but to my ears the neck lacked a bit of brightness and cut compared to the bridge. I unscrewed the pole pieces no more than 1/8 turn and there was a noticeable increase in cut and top end response. I am very happy with the result and recommend trying this adjustment to brighten up a neck pickup.
Rumor has it that Duane Allman did this plus the Peter Green mod. Combining those and using the middle position would be interesting. Also, the bridge pickup was much lower power than the neck pickup.
Great video. Not sure what I prefer, both sound great but the raised pole pieces has lots of attack and articulation that would help it punch out, while the normal would feel compressed and easy to play
That's an incredible trick Johan! and awesome playing too, you definitely get the single coil dynamics and some tele like twang. It would be so good if somebody invented a mechanical switch/lever to "flip" between settings that can be pre-adjusted.
I had thought about it and Actually do it for years with a Duncan sh14 or any other gainier and ir darker humbucker. You get more bite and a bit less gain. I like it a lot!
Still growls well, but has much more attack. Like a lot of comments say, telecaster-ish but darker IMO. I wonder how it sounds in the neck position. Interesting for dark and dynamic soloing.
Johan, you might see if it makes a much of a sound difference if the screws were totally removed. That way you could leave the pickup closer to the strings. My thought is that taking the screws all the way out will turn it into a single coil, but theoretically, since you still have the reverse winding of the unused portion of the pickup, it should work to do noise reduction.... ie noiseless single coil. I'm thinking that the original reason these poles were screws was to totally remove them if wanted. Blessings, PG
+THUNDERWORX Ah, that's an interesting perspective! I heard in an earlier comment that another channel Groovy lessons had done that in a clip. Cheers Johan
Great video as usual, I think it was advised on the seymour duncan blog about adjusting poles (they recommended only the 3 bass poles to be heightened though). If you're ok with opening a humbucker here's a trick; remove metal spacer from screw coils, let the magnet touch/stick to the screw coils,place something plastic between the magnet and bolt coils so magnet won't move...specially good for too thick sounding pickups
If you rub peanut butter on one of the coils, and put a pickup cover back on, the pickup will be really delicious. Actually a great video. Very interesting.
This is an amazing mod, Johan. I really like the dynamics of my P90, but sometimes it sound kinda weak and thin. Also it hums like crazy, so it is unusable in some environments. I was thinking about putting a PAF style humbucker in the neck position, but I was afraid that I loose all those dynamics. Now, I'm gonna give it a chance and I'm going to use this mod. I'll let you know how it came out! Thanks again for great video and useful "trick"! Cheers! ;)
I like the tonal change, but does anyone notice a slight loss of sustain? I suppose that's a trade off... I could live with that. It does sound great, though.
Yeah, I'm just surprised so many people in the comments didn't seem to know about it. Cheers for making the video, it's a great reference for anyone wanting to try it.
Interesting experiment. There's a video on UA-cam of early Deep Purple Mk2 with Ritchie Blackmore playing his ES-335 with pole pieces set very high and the pickup itself low. Maybe he was looking for that 'thinner' more biting sound, of which he later became very famous, from a Gibson guitar.
My theory is raising the Poles on one Bobbin is giving that bobbin more output. Heres an idea put a Potentiometer in between the coils to Mix the amount of Humbuck to Single Coil.
It would be intersting to hear it clean, i mean crystal clean, without the slightest crunchiness. Overdrive already gives a lots of treble to the sound, so the difference could be very little without drive.
PLEASE do a demo on the new Supro Super 1606!!! It was just released. Maybe a head-to-head against the Fender Champ? Thanks a bunch!!!Your channel is great!!!
Everytime I watch, I enjoy your playing. I always wonder if the things you play are songs I've never heard in my 51 years or is it just really tasteful playing? It's obviously the second.
This idea is done in a different way on the Epiphone Blueshawk: they have single coils but a dummy single coil as the other half of the humbucker hidden in the guitar body that produces no sound. Blueshawk is great hidden gem of a guitar for the price
I have two Blueshawks (one for me and one for my wife.) They're great guitars, but that Blues90 humbucking setup with the single coil sounds awful, in my opinion. So, I yanked out the Blues90s and the dummy coils in both guitars. In my wife's, I installed a matched set of P90s from guitarfetish. Now the guitar sounds like a Gibson from back in the day. Sure there's single coil hum. Who cares? It's also got the "bark" and "bite" of Old School Gibsons. In my Blueshawk, I put a guitarfetish P90 in the bridge position. I've always loved the smoky sound of a Strat single coil in neck position, so I modified a P90 pickup cover then hid a DiMarzio Blue Velvet Strat pickup inside the P90 cover. Now I have two really distinctive sounds... the perfect blues guitar.
I've been doing this for years and it works wonders. I can't believe we live in an age where players are so ignorant that they'd replace a pickup before trying an adjustment of height and poles.
The first guitar player I saw doing this was Ritchie Blackmore. He did it on his famous ES 335 and the best example of THAT sound is the solo on 'Child In Time' from the Deep Purple In Rock album. I have never heard before such a vocal neck humbucker and such a cutting bridge humbucker. Simply sublime!
I lower the pup and raise the screws like in this video on the neck pup of my Les Paul. Been doing it for years. Definitely clears up the mud especially when using a fair amount of distortion. I usually set the bridge pup on it pretty much standard. I find this works best with Les Paul neck pups
this worked really well on my hexbolt bucker bridge pickup on my cheap Ibanez. even though the height was set by me before they sounded like ass on every amp setting. Now they’re ever so slightly twangy and chimier than my McCarty.
Every morning, when Johan is waking up, the first thing he's thinking is: How on earth could I mess with guitar components today, in the way nobody ever mess or even think about?
+Phil Smith Thanks Phil! :-) That and coffee ;-)
That really makes those pickups bark! I love when I get notification of a new video from you Johan. Highlight of my otherwise boring day! Keep up the great work brother finding new ways to amaze us :-)
That's what makes great guitarist great! Distortion with purity and clarity. Anybody can plug in a 'mash-up' box but tone like this is real music.
Shouldn’t be afraid to do adjustments to your guitars. I do all the time. ✌️🤪🎸🎶🎵🎶🎵
been doing this for years :) If they're adjustable, I'll adjust them
I find it works well for neck humbuckers especially on dark guitars, and if you back the pickup height off quite a bit.
A similar test I have tried is to remove all six screws.
Then only one coil is recording input from the strings, but both is used for the humbucking part.
That sounds even more like a single coil, but with cancelation.
Adjusting poles is really helpful for recording layered guitar passages. Saves you time in the EQ process.
the same effect can be achieved shortening the screws a bit as Neil Shon did on his Les Paul during Journey era. The pickup will be brighter sounding because the magnetic pull does'nt travel as far when it's shortened by the shorter travel length of the screws you just cut down.
The proper way of adjusting pole pieces and humbucker height is as follows:
Bring the height fairly close to the strings. Back off a bit with the heavier/lower strings. Now hit the low E and the A separately while slowly lowering the height- you will be listening on a totally CLEAN amp setting for the "wah wah wah" string sound that you hear when you are coming close to being in tune while tuning a string. As you go further away, that wah/hum gets smoother and more stable. When it stabilizes, the magnets are no longer pulling the string so hard it fucks with intonation and harmonics. Do the same with the high strings. You can move up to the D or G string if you have to, if it is too difficult to hear the wah/hum.
Now, go individually across strings and string jump, also testing natural harmonics, and listen to the volume level of each string- THE POLE PIECES CONTROL THE VOLUME OF THEM. It does NOT go by fretboard/string radius as most luthiers and manufacturers have believed. It will vary guitar to guitar/humbucker to humbucker, depending on your tremolo/nut, string type/gauge, and individual humbucker (no 2 are the same). The final result will most likely be a staggered D-E and then staggered again e-G. The E and G will most likely be right at or BELOW the humbucker surface! You need to keep in mind the CORE size of the strings. THAT is what the magnetic field is pulling, NOT the winding around them.
After setting the volume/poles, test AGAIN the height using the same method above, and then raise it back up ONE HALF TO ONE TURN OF THE SCREWDRIVER, NO MORE.
NOW your poles and height are correct... Check your intonation and set it properly (for the first time ever if you have never set your humbuckers and poles properly- the magnetic field interfered with intonation).
You're welcome
Fatal Heart Rhythm how did any famous artists make it without doing this exact procedure? Pardon my sarcasm but I think we get too caught up in the finite details about tone and we fool ourselves into thinking there is a correct way of doing it. There’s not. I believe you know exactly what you’re talking about, and your method makes perfect sense to me. That’s all good and proper, but you’re acting like it’s holy knowledge or something. I know many great players with crazy ideas about pickup height and pickups in general, and they sound incredible (and intonated). Like Frusciante or Dimebag. Gotta stay open to different ideas, you know? You’re welcome.
Interesting topic, to my ears it's a thinner, slightly telecaster style tone. Still very nice though! Would be useful to repeat this with the neck pickup for comparison :) You continue to put a lot of thought & work to your videos and it's very much appreciated. x
+Kossofffan Thanks, I'm glad to hear that!
Yes, that's true. Singlecoils tend to sound thin and weak, but I really love their dynamics. I really like having a P90 in the neck position, but sometimes it sounds kinda weak and hums and buzzes like hell! So, it would be nice to have a neck humbucker with singlecoil dynamics... I guess I'm going to try this "mod" soon.
+CreamFreshCream I don't think P-90's sound thin at all, just less
focused on the lowest tone frequencies. I have a '69 SG Special that
is very full. In fact, it's just what one would expect from it - plenty
of nastiness and sting but less low end to cancel out the glorious
mids and high mids. P-90's are more versatile, though you have to be
careful with the single coil hum.
I didn't really say that P90s are thin I rather referred to Strat/Tele pickups. I agree with you that they are full sounding and have that midrange bark that no other pickup has. However, I think they are not as powerful as most humbuckers and that's why they can sometimes sound a bit weak with overdrive... On the other hand some overdrive pedals just shine with P90s. I also agree that they are more versatile than humbuckers, because while they sound great distorted, they sound brilliant when played clean, too! But as you said, they hum a LOT, much more than Strat pickups for instance and hum-canceling/noiseless P90s lack those dynamics that I love! Thanks for your advice, Larry!
Dang, Tele tone, you say? I might have to try this then! I know I have one guitar I'd love to hear that tone out of, especially in the bridge HB.
The playing ,gear, but most of all the tone you get from your fingers surprises me everytime. I'm expecting a different tone most times so it's a real treat. By far the best monster tone and gear channel on UA-cam
Amazing, it works. Even a 1/3 of yours hight actually works really fine. My Les Paul neck pickup got much more dynamics and "air", its not so dark anymore, especially on clean side.
Nice! Make sense, cos one coil is taking all the sound because of the height of the pole pieces and the other is there to cancel the hum. So yes, only one coil is taking almost all the sound. Very good tip
Your channel has made me change so much settings on my guitars on the past few months, it's insane. Great video Johan!
That’s a great idea. It’s a similar tone to asymmetrical wound coils which I really like. I’ve always been a fan of mini humbuckers for the same reason, they have the dynamics, clarity and balance of a single coil but with the mids of a humbucker.
Perhaps the magnetic sensing field being tighter (what I assume is happening here and on minis based on physical observation) is the key to clarity, and possibly why stacked humbuckers (noiseless single coils) sound SO damn close to _actual_ single coils.
Johan... You are THE MAN. Currently trying this set up.
+Joe Guss Thanks Joe! Glad to hear it!
You just solved a mystery about why my hs filtertrons sound so spanky compared compared to my pafs. The poles are raised about 5mm above the pup. Good stuff my man!
I've tried this trick before, it really helps with muddy pickups or pickups that are a little too dark. Adds a bit of clarity and lowers the output a bit. Great video as usual!
I've had my pickup like this for years now, at first I did this so it looked like I'd taken off the cover, so it would've seemed like I didn't just have the stock cheap pickups on my epi, but then it sounded awesome so I just left it like that forever
You can also remove the poll pieces all together, and raise the pickup back up to get even more single coil type sounds. Sounds like the next video idea.
+Ray Dorman Thanks Ray!
I tried that once too, I think I found out about it from Dr Groovy music lessons.
+buzzsaw63 Cool, I'm gonna check him out!
do that next johan!!
I do this on the neck pickup of all my HH guitars. But i remove the screws completely and flip the pickup, so that the studs are closest to the neck. Sounds almost like a stacked single coil :)
Thank You, Johan! Really cool idea, never thought of what happens if pole pieces are taken to extreme. Thanks to this video, I can, for the first time, use bridge pickup for other tones than distortion. Never liked clean bridge tones before.
Thanks Samo! That's great to Hear!
I sometimes do this on the bass end of neck humbuckers to try to get a lighter tone in the bottom strings: I put the whole pickup at an angle bass lowered treble normal, pole pieces raised on the bottom strings to compensate. Can work quite well but you have to be careful the poles don't vibrate loose when they stick out like that!
+Nick Benjamin Thanks Nick, yeah it's probably especially useful for the neck
Over the years this how I adjust my PAF on a Les Paul, First set truss rod, get your string height set, now your ready, take the screws on the front pu turned down flush if possible,then raise the height of the pu until the low and high E touch the bottom of the string then do the same with the others turning the screws up to just touch, then you have just matched the radius of your neck, do the same with the bridge pu. 2. Now lower your pickups to the desired Height, just make sure none of your strings are to close to the string as they will pull them down, Gibson recommends 1/16th on the High E and the low 3/32inch. Measure from the bottom of the string to the top of the screw. This a good place to start. Thanks Johan, it took a long time to get this information
+Johnny B. Good Thanks, great feedback!
I'm glad you liked it, it works for me, to get a even sound, and you can know its right, one guy at the Gibson custom shop would set the heads in v shape to each other once they're set.
Wouldn't that make B and G string a bit louder than the rest of the strings? Since I got my first Kinman pickups, I have always staggered the poles the way he does. It just works the best and the string volumes are quite even. So when you strum a chord you will hear all the strings (depends on your pickup , well) and it will be richer. Basically A and D poles are raised since those are the most quiet strings , G and B are lowered as they are the loudest, E and e pretty much stay at the same height. You can then raise them all by half turns and adjust the tone you like. Try it. For more info you can go to Kinman and see the setup he uses.
Thank you so much! My Les Paul neck pickup was a bit boring, bassy and undynamic. Now it´s definately better. In fact it sounds more like a classic PAF which often are more dynamic and single coil-sounding than most modern humbuckers. Great!
+Bosse I Glad to hear it. Cheers!
Yes! I don't know if you had read my comment a couple months back about this being a regular practice of mine Johan, glad to always see you experimenting!
The way I do it is I slant the pickup with the treble side as close as I can get it to the unwound strings to give the fullest sound to the lighter strings as possible, then start raising pole pieces according to taste from there and varying the slant of the pickup. Can get some pretty awesome sounds!
I've been really hooked on Instrumental Pickups...they have a PAF type Alnico II p/u called the "Comet Duster" which is amazing and responds excellent to adjusting the pole pieces. You can find them on Facebook, the owner Ethan Spaulding is the best and really great to work with!
Keep on with the ideas Johan!
+The Sandman Now that you mention it, I remember that comment! Thanks for the inspiration man! :-)
Johan Segeborn way to keep searching for ways outside of the box! Glad I can help out wherever I can!
Warning though, ever since I started adjusting my pole pieces I've never gone back to just regular humbucker settings! Haha...it's especially kind of funny when I'll be in Guitar Center and I find a guitar I'm starting to dig I'll get one of my small screwdrivers when the associate aren't looking(I'm an alarm tech so I'll have small screwdrivers on me and in between appointments I'll stop into guitar stores) and I'll start adjusting pole pieces and slanting the P/U like I was saying! Haha...one time you shoulda saw the reaction of one of the associates when I got done playing a guitar and I didn't put it back to stock...The guy IMMEDIATELY ran it over to the guitar tech like, "WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS!!" I didn't say anything and just walked out before he freaked out more...it's like dude, they can be screwed back in! But alot of people won't look outside the box like you're doing Johan. Rock on
I've got an old WESTONE that has 2 humbuckers with 12 adjustable HEX pole pieces and I've found you can get quite a difference in tone by adjusting them away from the standard two sets of 6 all the same height - interesting video thanks for the time / effort
Great vid as always Johan! I've always supported this idea, since I've played the infamous Duncan JB stock AND tweaked. The difference is just huge. The stock JB is muddy when playing chords, and single notes won't shine nicely as well. But when the pole screws are tweaked a bit (and the pickup height is set properly as well) it becomes A LOT clearer, articulate and more singing. Also, if I may suggest another interesting idea, maybe for a new vid of yours, nice results can be obtained by waving a neodymium disc close to a pickup bobbin (with matched polarity, S-S or N-N), which essentially degausses a pickup magnet. It works with Alnico pickups only (Ceramics are too strong magnets to obtain noticeable results), but it helps givin a vintage-y vibe and smoother sound to modern pickups. Also, it's easily reversible by flippin the disc to the opposite polarity. Nice effects on my JB for sure.
+Fabrizio Zado Donadelli Thanks Fabrizio, that's an interesting idea. I actually thought of doing a similar clip, but for speakers. I'm definitely gonna try this too now! Cheers Johan
Don't try demagnetising pickups, it tends to not end well and is hard to reverse. Alnico 2 and 5 sound different because the alloys they're made of have a different permiability which affects inductance (the key electrical property of pickups that governs frequency response) and eddy current behaviour.
It's quite easy to swap an alnico 2 for an alnico 5 magnet. Or either for ceramic. You can also experiment with a thinner magnet and a steel spacer strip.
There’s a video on here of Slash’s AFD Les Paul getting the pickups re potted at the Seymour Duncan factory, The set up on the pickups is very similar. Now that’s out of the way.... great video as always. Thanks for taking the time to do all these... some of the best on UA-cam.
+Duncan Cartledge cool, do you have a link to it? Cheers
+Johan Segeborn ua-cam.com/video/6l4xzGA11po/v-deo.html
Leigh Tranter yep that’s the one. The bridge slugs look like they are set to match the bridge radius.
Would have loved to hear this on the neck pickup, especially for cleans! Great vid.
I've learned somethig BIG today!
THANK YOU JOHAN!
I already do something like this but not so exaggerated. I just drop the pu by a few mm and raise the pole pieces about 2mm but vary the height to balance the string outputs. Brightens up the humbuckers just nicely.
How the heck do you come up with those ideas that regularly? Thats insane, keep up
+George Bolshakov Thanks George! One experiment usually leads to the next :-)
Probably eager to understand "how it works" :)
I'm guessing because humbuckers are usually wired to go from north to south in series, the north coil is picking up very little and therefore phasing out less that it would if the coils were even.
we look forward for the next.....
Mad Scientists don't sleep. That's what makes them mad.
We're just lucky he uses his genius for good and not for evil.
Tried it right away and I'm amazed what a diffrence it makes on the neck pickup! Awesome trick, Johan! Rock on!
+Sid F. Thanks Sid, great to hear that! Rock on!
I really dig your channel!! Its really cool how you exeriment with tones and all that you do! Have been waching your videos in like 3 months or so, really enjoy them! Keep it up!
+Karl Alvin Rydman Thanks man, I'm glad to hear that!
I have been adjusting my PP's since the 80's
You tilt the pickup and/or adjust the pole pieces on the higher strings so their voltage is nearer equal to the heavier strings as well when you bend the subtle signal loss(drop-out) is not as great. This why some custom makers use blades for telecasters As well as to compensate for a guitar with a strong radius You turn up the screws very little. This is tuning your pickup it is truly a lost art.
. You may have to adjust the treble and/or presence control this way the source (pickup) does it's job and you rely less on compensating with the amps tone controls. So many aspects of guitar tone are getting lost in these days of too much gain.
As well you dont crank the screws out and have to lower the pickup though i appreciate you did this in the video on purpose
It remember a Telecaster tone to me. Thank you for the video.
+Vinícius Aquino Thanks Vinícius!
Yes, I agree. It sounds a bit like the Tele's bridge pickup with a bit more body and fatness.
I've looked at these pole screws many times and wondered what would happen... but I've never tested adjusting them. Thank you very much for showing this, now I don't have to do it because I didn't really like the tone. :-) Thank you! :-)
+Blues Bengan Thanks man, glad to be of service!
usually smoother when you raise it up like 2 whole turns 5th string through the 2nd
im going though these comments and johan's respond are super nice and helpful, he deserves way more attention than just this for his creativity
I enjoy filtertrons and P90's for this. A bridge filtertron in to a crunchy amp is an amazing thing, especially when you really dig in.
Glad to see you've found this little secret. I've been using those screws for a couple of years now. Try a Strat 'stagger' on the screws and put the two coils in parallel for some Strat-Quack (relative bobbin strength from hight differences are important to dial maximum quack). I do this on the neck humbuckers for cleans and light drive, while leaving Bridge alone for distortion. Next compare the 'high screws' mod + rotate the pickup 180 degrees.
There's something I do in conjunction with, or instead of is install the pickups upside down. I've done it to the neck pickup on one of my semihollows, and a temporary thing to the bridge on my Les Pauls until I replaced the pickups in it.
It only works with humbuckers that have mismatched winding, and bigger the difference, the more noticeable the effect.
The coil with the adjustable poles is usually the one with the higher winding, and is the dominant vol of the two. I first thought is it after doing a pickup installation on someone's PRS Custom 22 & 24. I installed a set of Wagners in them; both with Darkburst-N/Godwood-B, same specs. The neck pickup in the 24 is much brighter then the 22 (as all 24-fret guitars are do to the fact that to fit the 2 extra frets necessitates moving the neck P.U closer to the bridge, which brightens it by moving it closer the the bridge as well s moving it out from under one of the harmonic segments of the string).I first did it on an ES-335 that had a custom wound set of Fralins. There was a regular PAF in the bridge, but the neck PU was wound to sit between a PAF and the Fralin "Unbucker." The Unbucker basically starts with a PAF, but leans into the "asymmetric winding" thing that PAFs have. I don't know the exact specs, but if a normal PAF has one coil with 500 more winds that the other, the Unbucker has 1000.
It's meant for darker sounding guitars that you want to be brighter, or many use one in the bridge in a Strat that would normal be SSS, or in the neck of a Tele. Initially I wanted a brighter tone in the neck for a couple things I was recording. I at first was doing what's done in this video by dropping the whole coil, then raising the slugs back to where the pickup normally was. The issue I had was that I actually wanted the compression that it normally has with the HB it's normal height.
I was changing the strings and right after I put the Low E on, I got a call from the owner of the PRS' asking about coming down to get them from me. As soon as I hung up,I loosened the Low E and went about flipping the neck pickup around so the coil with the slugs was on the bridge side as opposed to the neck side. That little change in the position of the over wound coil was so close to what I was going for when I was lowering the coil, that I only had to drop the pickup and raise the slugs about 1/4 of the distance of the way I had lowered it initially when dropping the pickup height.
A few months later I bought a Les Paul from someone with a set of PAFs in it. The PAFs were good (I actually have them in another Guitar now), but I found the bridge to be too thin for my taste (a typical thing with the bridge position on LPs. A few months later I put in Cherrybuckers that have a little more body to them. I probably would have replaced then sooner if I kept the pickups that it came with installed normally, but flipping it around and having the hotter coil further towards the neck removed enough of the thinness that I wasn't thinking (Christ, I have to change this pickup) Everytime I played it.
Again, YMMV depending on the way the pickup is wound. And no, despite all the places online that describes the "out-of-phase" sound of Peter Green's 59 Burst came about by accidentally installing the pickup upside-down, it will NOT cause this it happen (in reality, that came from removing the magnet out of the pickup and putting it back in flipped).
I have an Epiphone LP Custom (3 humbuckers) with the Epi Alnico Classics. If you do a quick search, the usual comments are "too hot", "too much output", "too much wax" (this one is true, wax comes out when you adjust the pole pieces), but with some height/pole adjustments, they sound pretty good tbh. I do like to mess with the volume/tone so I still have to figure out how to do a vintage wiring for 3 volume pots & master tone so I can blend in the middle pup in whatever usual LP mode.
+Nato This Screambucker was unpotted
Hi! Once upon a time, some models of some guitar brands -like Framus- had round 5 way switches. I don't know is it hard or easy to find today. But they can solve your problem.
Every Stratocaster has a 5-way switch!
But we are talking about somethings can fit to a LP. Not a Strat.
I have seen musicians/techs install extra switches in many types of guitars. You have to make a new hole. I mean if you can't fine a 5-way sw. that is made for the LP, then you can fit a 5-way sw if you really have to have one. I was not saying it would be easy. But I get your point.
Wow. It totally changed the tone. I've never seen anything like this before. I'm gonna have to try this now.
Or you can use a Bill Lawrence q filter. It puts another coil in series with your pickup, so when you raise the value of the q filter, it changes the resonant peak of the pickup as well as gives the impression that coils are being bled off, giving a single coil type sound. It is very subtle at first, but when you get used to it, it really makes a difference. With the coil all the way down, it's effectively out of the circuit, and all the way up, it makes the pickup sound almost like a piezo pickup. (Pay close attention to the wiring guide to make sure you wire it in correctly or else it won't work.)
That's really cool! A strange idea but raising those poles gets you that "low-gain" Van Halen sound, love it!
+William Bartholomew Thanks William! Yeah the sound gets more "stringy". Cheers!
Johan, I am just like you. I have been playing for over 30 years and have never turned any of the screws on any of my humbucker guitar's pickup adjustment screws.I just got back to the computer after watching the first 5 minutes of this video then playing around with my 70's Starfire for about 3 hours using this pickup adjustment technique (both pickups). The guitar is what I guess would be called "vintage-sounding", which I guess means dark (covered tones, very present in the low-mids, especially the neck pickup) with a soft-attack (which maybe means low-output?). I was hoping that it would brighten the guitar up a bit, but it didn't. I will say there were two immediately beneficial outcomes. I was able to REALLY balance the output across the individual strings, and I was able to both play a LITTLE bit quieter, AND still play AS LOUD, if that makes any sense. Would you say this added something like 20% more dynamic range to your Les Paul? Was there anything you didn't like about this configuration? I love your work, my friend.
My experiments resulted in way more attack, like the attack knob on a compressor being turned up when polepieces out, and turned down or off when polepieces flat. In the end to get the most even response and pleasing sound, I opted to leave them completely flat equal height in the bobbin. So basically, after all experiments, I thought it ultimately sounded best the way it came stock. Definitely more even string volume. That plucky attack sound definitely runs its course pretty fast, but might be useful in a mix for something different every now and then. Single coils just do it so much better.
Once again, another fantastic and difference making sound experiment! TY
+Jim Grandstaff Thanks Jim, glad to hear it!
Ever scince I was a child I tinkered with stuff....
and have been adjusting pole pieces for a long time...not quite to that extent...which does sound very good....
I actually turn my pick ups around were the screw poles are both in middle and use them to fatten the bridge and define the neck..love the sound of a neck bucker set very low and the poles raised to harmonic offset with the other coil...very P90 ish but with a weird kinda strat tone at the same time...
I am a self proffessed tone GURU...
great playing
+bob bob Thanks Bob!
thats exactly what I thought in this moment
Did this with a Duncan JB and I love it. It sounded great before but I just prefer single coil sounds. Thanks for the video.
Moving traditional pole pieces with a big head out of the coil dramatically reduces the inductance. The effect is electronicly similar to reducing the number of turns of wire in the coils. It's quite deterministic and controllable.
It doesn't work very well on super-distortion style pickups with set screws as their profile is fairly consistent along their length, if anything screwing them out does the opposite and makes the sound darker as you're moving hollow section from the top of the coil and replacing it with solid section from the bottom of the coil.
Love this! Brilliant demo of the differences.
I consider adjusting the bobbin and pup height to be an essential part of setting a up a guitar. In fact, if I was doing a jazz gig I would recess the bobbin and bring the pup up on the neck. If I was doing something requiring a fender sound would recess the pup and raise the bobbin massively.
Would like to have heard the neck like that. Some neck humbuckers are muddy, and I think that might be the remedy. I raised the G-B-E on mine slightly last week, now I’m thinking of going drastic.
Never change, bro. This stuff is great. And when I say never change, I mean don’t become a sellout like half of these other “successful” guitar UA-camrs. Cheers!
Great stuff Johan ...yep does give wider 'open' range and great for cords, but you do loose than 'fat' humbucker thud!...have tried this by following the stepping pattern seen on fender strats ...and yes great for cords but always have gone back to spec...happy with the big thud !
+Gerry Loughran Thanks Gerry, it would be cool to have these setups switchable
Would agree with that and you get that big sound the strat just won't do - another great video Johan -Thanks
Recently I was just thinking if it was not time to try a guitar with single coils, as I really liked some overdriven P90 and fendery sounds, but not the pickup noise. Now I can try to incorporate some of it in my SG :) Thanks Johan. Killer playing as usual, rock on!
First thing I did after changing to cobalt slinky 8-38 was adjust my pole pieces up and down like vintage fenders but with the wounds higher and the G being lowest in the same way the bridge intonation was set.
I’ve been experimenting with this on my new Tonerider Birmingham set. Right now after starting with the two E poles at 1/32” above the bobbin, I make the normal 1/16” treble side and 3/32” bass side height from strings at the highest fret adjustment. Then I raise the other pole pieces to match the curvature semi-staggered. That is, the E-A-D poles 3/32” away and G-B-E poles 1/16” away. Sounding good so far but I may experiment to find more optimal pole heights. Not sure if it can be measured electronically.
Gotta say with the pole pieces adjusted out and pickup slammed down definitely had a spank to it with a low output humbucker sound, depending on what you were playing. Good demo Johan, gives a very clear contrast on timber adjustment
+stepvan Joe Thanks Stepvan
Hi Johan - I noticed at the Stones Exhibitionism event, lots of Keith's 60's Les Pauls (including the famous 'Sympathy' triple hum Black Beauty) had the same arrangement on the neck pickup - ie overall height down and pole pieces up. Also, there are some clips of Peter Green with the original Fleetwood Mac where he has the bass end of the humbucker screwed right down into the cavity and the pole pieces staggered upwards to compensate...;
Try to remove the pole pieces the tone will surprise you, tried this in my Epi LP Special II because the pups where to muddy for my taste just a tip cover the holes with black tape to keep dust off the wax in there.
Thanks for your videos. I really like your tone and playing. I googled this as I want to share my pole piece adjustment ‘journey’ with y’all. I bought tonerider alnino 2 set for an old Samick les Paul. They sound really good but to my ears the neck lacked a bit of brightness and cut compared to the bridge. I unscrewed the pole pieces no more than 1/8 turn and there was a noticeable increase in cut and top end response. I am very happy with the result and recommend trying this adjustment to brighten up a neck pickup.
Rumor has it that Duane Allman did this plus the Peter Green mod. Combining those and using the middle position would be interesting. Also, the bridge pickup was much lower power than the neck pickup.
+John Rose Thanks John, I'm gonna try that
Awesome. Would love to see that video. Crank the treble and mids, bass around 3. Turn up to 10. Marshall super bass if you got one laying around.
Oh oh oh, please do that!! Extremely curious.
Great video. Not sure what I prefer, both sound great but the raised pole pieces has lots of attack and articulation that would help it punch out, while the normal would feel compressed and easy to play
This is how Duane Allman set his pups......best video so far on this method.
That's an incredible trick Johan! and awesome playing too, you definitely get the single coil dynamics and some tele like twang. It would be so good if somebody invented a mechanical switch/lever to "flip" between settings that can be pre-adjusted.
Why aren't we funding this...
Damn this guy sounds good!
+jasq99 Thanks! :-) Great to hear that!
You should consider a wrap over on the tail pc, I just did it and I love it.
interesting. somewhere in between may be optimum. great channel. keep it up!
+elgen0314 Thanks! :-)
I would have liked to see the experiment done on the neck pickup too. Ha more work to do.
AWESOME!!! I’m going to try this!!
+ZblockWoW Thank, good to hear that!
Damn that adds a nice treble-y bite. Good shit as usual
I left the pickup height alone and took out the adjustable pole pieces. You should try that and see if it is the same effect.
I had thought about it and Actually do it for years with a Duncan sh14 or any other gainier and ir darker humbucker. You get more bite and a bit less gain. I like it a lot!
+HF1600ie Cheers
Still growls well, but has much more attack. Like a lot of comments say, telecaster-ish but darker IMO. I wonder how it sounds in the neck position. Interesting for dark and dynamic soloing.
+Flexprog Yeah, Its probably even more useful for the neck Humbucker which have a tendency to get muddy
I love that sound. Wonder how it would sound played through a Fender amp. Thanks again.
+Crazy Kong Thanks, that would sound really dynamic and cool!
It's nice you do all the thinking for us
Johan, you might see if it makes a much of a sound difference if the screws were totally removed. That way you could leave the pickup closer to the strings. My thought is that taking the screws all the way out will turn it into a single coil, but theoretically, since you still have the reverse winding of the unused portion of the pickup, it should work to do noise reduction.... ie noiseless single coil. I'm thinking that the original reason these poles were screws was to totally remove them if wanted. Blessings, PG
+THUNDERWORX Ah, that's an interesting perspective! I heard in an earlier comment that another channel Groovy lessons had done that in a clip. Cheers Johan
Awesome video. Thanks for the advice. Gonna try this tomorrow
To my ears you get a kind of t-top tone. Very nice!
+Antonio j Thanks Antonio!
Great video as usual, I think it was advised on the seymour duncan blog about adjusting poles (they recommended only the 3 bass poles to be heightened though). If you're ok with opening a humbucker here's a trick; remove metal spacer from screw coils, let the magnet touch/stick to the screw coils,place something plastic between the magnet and bolt coils so magnet won't move...specially good for too thick sounding pickups
+Mertay Cicek Interesting, I'll try that :-)
That's the famous dimarzio 'half-air mod' amigo. Used to mellow out the Tone Zone.
Fantastic, Johan!
I'm going to do this right now in my LP.
;)
+João Victor Thanks João! Glad to hear that!
Nice playing! Great idea!!!
Like from Brazil.
If you rub peanut butter on one of the coils, and put a pickup cover back on, the pickup will be really delicious. Actually a great video. Very interesting.
This is an amazing mod, Johan. I really like the dynamics of my P90, but sometimes it sound kinda weak and thin. Also it hums like crazy, so it is unusable in some environments. I was thinking about putting a PAF style humbucker in the neck position, but I was afraid that I loose all those dynamics. Now, I'm gonna give it a chance and I'm going to use this mod. I'll let you know how it came out! Thanks again for great video and useful "trick"! Cheers! ;)
So did you try this?
Did it work..?
I like the low strings closer to pickup and higher strings lower the pickup
I like the tonal change, but does anyone notice a slight loss of sustain? I suppose that's a trade off... I could live with that. It does sound great, though.
I've read how Ritchie Blackmore used to do this on his ES-335 PAFs to get a better dynamic range. Seems to be a pretty old trick.
+anondynamic Well the trick is from 1957, like the pickup
Yeah, I'm just surprised so many people in the comments didn't seem to know about it. Cheers for making the video, it's a great reference for anyone wanting to try it.
+anondynamic Thanks! I think many know about it but have never tried it, like myself. Cheers Johan
anondynamic i just wrote that comment before I saw yours....you folks east of pacific time beat us west coasters to the comments!
Interesting experiment. There's a video on UA-cam of early Deep Purple Mk2 with Ritchie Blackmore playing his ES-335 with pole pieces set very high and the pickup itself low. Maybe he was looking for that 'thinner' more biting sound, of which he later became very famous, from a Gibson guitar.
My theory is raising the Poles on one Bobbin is giving that bobbin more output. Heres an idea put a Potentiometer in between the coils to Mix the amount of Humbuck to Single Coil.
+LRoy Shreding Wow!! That's a really interesting idea. Do you know of any implementations of that so far?
Id love to see that
I think a washburn model , [ v -something ] had a blender pot for thinning the humbucker, apparently worked quite well : }
www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-tone-garage/the-spin-a-split-mod Jag använder en CTS 500K no load potentiometer funkar klockrent
Thanks man
It would be intersting to hear it clean, i mean crystal clean, without the slightest crunchiness. Overdrive already gives a lots of treble to the sound, so the difference could be very little without drive.
Great test! There is certainly lot of middle ground to play with between the two test settings.
PLEASE do a demo on the new Supro Super 1606!!! It was just released. Maybe a head-to-head against the Fender Champ? Thanks a bunch!!!Your channel is great!!!
Very interesting, may be I'll try it in some of my humbucker guitars. But most of all I enjoyed your playing 😀
Everytime I watch, I enjoy your playing. I always wonder if the things you play are songs I've never heard in my 51 years or is it just really tasteful playing? It's obviously the second.
Don't know what to say. You are glorious!
+tonyiommi74 Thanks my friend :-)
This idea is done in a different way on the Epiphone Blueshawk: they have single coils but a dummy single coil as the other half of the humbucker hidden in the guitar body that produces no sound. Blueshawk is great hidden gem of a guitar for the price
I have two Blueshawks (one for me and one for my wife.) They're great guitars, but that Blues90 humbucking setup with the single coil sounds awful, in my opinion. So, I yanked out the Blues90s and the dummy coils in both guitars. In my wife's, I installed a matched set of P90s from guitarfetish. Now the guitar sounds like a Gibson from back in the day. Sure there's single coil hum. Who cares? It's also got the "bark" and "bite" of Old School Gibsons. In my Blueshawk, I put a guitarfetish P90 in the bridge position. I've always loved the smoky sound of a Strat single coil in neck position, so I modified a P90 pickup cover then hid a DiMarzio Blue Velvet Strat pickup inside the P90 cover. Now I have two really distinctive sounds... the perfect blues guitar.
Nice work !!!! Nearly Neil Young Cinnamon Girl at 3:20min ..
+LRoy Shreding Thanks man, that was actually an improv based on the outro of the Kiss song Hotter than Hell. Cheers Johan