Robben Ford Discussion

[weylman]

Hi David,

I just bought a new Baker guitar. The height of the pickups needs to be adjusted. Can you recommend a distance I could measure to the strings...........thanks.

[Bluelobster]

Are you kidding f or real ??????????????

You can get the eight by mentally conecting some weird parts of your insannnne body wiith some other pparts of your "such" insaznnnnnnne brain.

whatever you might think , believe me , better not to buy a BBQer if you're not able to do it by yourself...............

i can't bluieve all these newcomers
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[frank0936]

Welcome to the forum, Weylman. Don't mind Blobby. It's just time for his medication again.
Frank

[Aeolian]

What kind of pickups? I hear that Gene is currently hot on the DiMarzio virtual vintage. You could check the pickup manufacturers website for recommendations. In general you can get away with having humbuckers closer than single coils, but I tend to like the quicker attack and sweeter top end with them further down. Because I switch guitars, I found a place on my Strat where the Kinman's sound great, and then adjusted the pickups on my 335 so that the volume was similar. This keeps the level and gain similar as I switch back and forth. As a side benefit, the 335 has a more acoustic sound. If you want a thicker sound with more gain, you can put them up until they almost touch a string fretted at the last fret. Sometimes you get weird overtones from this, so you just lower them a bit until that stops. At different points in my life, playing different kinds of music, I've had them all over the place. But at the moment they barely rise above the mounting rings.
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[weylman]

I started by setting the bridge pickup to 3/16" under the strings. I then adjusted the neck pickup by ear to achieve the same volume level. I also have the side under the thicker strings a little lower to take away some of the rumble and low end distortion.

Thanks again.

[Daved]

Weylman,

Good advice and suggestions there from Aeolian.

I find that P/Us are, like many other elements of the guitar, very subjective.

Have you ever thought about the fact that out of pretty much ALL musical instruments, the guitar is the most customizable? (One could argue about the drums, I suppose, but I consider a percussion 'kit' to be comparable to a guitarists 'rig'. Other than changing heads, I don't generally see a lot of personal modification going on with individual drums, etc.)
With no other instrument can the player so easily, not only pick, choose, and change their components, but also how those components are applied... making for the most diversely individual and personal of all instruments, in my opinion.

There are so many user-variables available to the guitar player that it is comparativly easy for a guitarist to "find his own voice".

My advice? Experiment, my friend, experiment. No one can, or should, tell you what you want to hear coming from your ax.
Raising and lowering P/Us is generally one of the easiest and quickest of all adjustments to make (I have actually done it for Robben in the middle of songs, in the middle of live performances, while the guitar remained hanging around his neck! ) and will in no way harm your guitar, so go to it!
BTW, with Derek Trucks, I occasionally (when he asks) leave a jewler's screwdriver on top of his amp so he can play with his pickup heights onstage during the show.

Generic setting is probably about 1/4 inch from the strings. From there, like Aeolian, try raising them and/ or lowering them at your leisure and desire till you find the spot where they perform the way that best speaks for you. I usually make my adjustments about 1/4 to 1/2 turn at a time. Yes, that little CAN make a big difference. Oh, and the pickups do not need to be kept level. You may position them ANY way you want, depending upon what it is you are looking for and/or trying to achieve.

There are NO set rules. It's all about the sound and response that YOU want. From ax to ax the woods change, the string gauges and compositions change, the pickups and their characteristics change, the components (bridges, saddles, machine heads, tailpieces) change, and the resuting combinations interact to make each and EVERY guitar a distinctly differant piece of art.
And you, as the the artist, can, and SHOULD, take advantage of this to make your instrument YOUR piece of art.

Look at some of the major signatures in guitar playing that resulted from the individual tweaking his own instrument... Les Paul, Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, Brian May, etc. Boy, did they, and all those like them, change the musical landscape with their 'fiddling' around (Get it? Yuk-Yuk. ) or what!?!

As for your pickups, they are basically magnets creating a magnetic field, through which the strings run. The wire windings in the pickup allow the pickup to sense the frequencies of the metal strings vibrating within that magnetic field, and then translate them to your audio reproduction gear. Repositioning the strings within that field (either by changing the height of the pickup itself, or by changing the height or postion of the bridge or/and nut) will change the tones, harmonics, and response of the notes you are trying to generate.

Moving the pickup closer to or further from the strings will affect it's volume, tone, and response. Use these parameters to not only determine the way the pickup itself sounds, but also how it interacts with other pickups as you switch back and forth between them.

However, be aware that the closer the pickup is to the string, the stronger they interact, to the point where (as Aeolian mentions) the P/U magnets will start severly affecting the performance of the strings. There comes a point where the draw of the magnet itself gets close enough to the metal strings to actually start tugging on the string which will affect the purity of the strings vibration and it's resulting frequencies. This can be either good or bad depending upon what kind of response it is that you want to get out of your guitar.
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( }:-Daved
"This boy's diseased with rhythm!" -Bing Crosby (Road To Rio, '49)

[diatonicdude]

Good advice to all of us guitar players, Daved. Thanks!

DD
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[JohnnyZ]

Definitely mark that post for reference!

I've learned more about p/u response in just the 3 minutes it took to read...

[weylman]

Thanks again David. I have tickets to see Robben with Larry Carlton in NYC March 17.

See you then?

Again, thanks for the great advice.

John

[Daved]

No, I will be in New York working with The Allman Brothers Band on their annual March "Evening with..." run at the Beacon Theatre (13 nights this year!).

But, now that you mention it, this could possibly be a 'heads-up'. I don't have any idea what Robben's schedule around the Carlton gig in New York will be, but the 17th is smack in the middle of the ABB shows, so it could be very possible Gregg will want Robben to show up and sit in with the ABB, if his schedule permits.

I know they wanted Robben to sit in with them last year but Robben had conflicting obligations. Maybe it could work out this year.
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B C-ing U!
( }:-Daved
"This boy's diseased with rhythm!" -Bing Crosby (Road To Rio, '49)

[juspasinby2003]

[BlueRunner]

Daved can always be depended upon to provide great advice. Thanks! And Weylman: Welcome aboard!
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