Ever Balance guitar pickups?
Guitar pickups with adjustable pole pieces can fine-tune your string-to-string volume balance to achieve the most balanced tone out of your guitar. Doing so optimizes your guitar’s pickups to your guitar electronics and gear.
How to adjust your string balance:
To adjust your string balance from your guitar pickups, follow these simple steps:
Set Pickup Height First
First, make sure you have the height correctly set on all pickups.
Screw all pole pieces until flush with the top of the pickup
This ensures a uniform starting point for all pole pieces. Be careful not to overtighten the pole pieces.
Plug your guitar into a clean amp on low volume.
A low, clean amp will not color the tone, and allow you to hear the differences more clearly.
Start playing and listening
Play a chord, plucking each note of the chord as evenly as possible. Listen intently for drops or increases in volume as you play.
Adjust Pole Pieces
If you notice a drop in volume when moving to a new string, raise the string’s pole piece by turning it counter-clockwise by 1/4 turn.
Repeat
Repeat the previous step until you’re happy with the results.
At Haywire Custom Shop, we pre-set pole pieces. Pole piece screw heads are relatively close to the pickup (the closer, the better). Notice the D string pole piece is raised – this is because the core of the D string is the smallest core and thus needs the pole piece to be closer to the string.
Also, the B string pole piece should be farthest away from its corresponding string. The B string tends to sound loudest on the guitar, and adjusting the pole piece away from the string tames the volume.
