What Happens When You Raise the Height On A Guitar Pickup

Howdy guitar friends!  So I've already penned the worlds best blogs on:

How To Adjust (Set) Pickup Height on a Telecaster for ULTIMATE TELE TONE!

How To Adjust (Set) Pickup Height on a Stratocaster for ULTIMATE STRAT TONE!

How To Adjust (Set) Pickup Height on a Humbucker for ULTIMATE TONE!

How To Adjust (Set) Pickup Height on a P-90 for ULTIMATE TONE!

But recently I've been getting questions like this:

"I want to make my bridge pickup louder and a lot less bright, what can I do?"  And the sad answer is this: YOUR SCREWED!  Sorry.  See here is the skinny on magnetic pickup height adjustment, and these points apply to all magnetic guitar pickups, including bass pickups!

• The closer you get to the strings the brighter the tone.

• The closer you get to the strings the louder the output will be.

• The closer you get to the strings the more focused the tone will get (it's detecting a smaller area of the string's movement)

• The closer you get to the strings the more the magnetic pull will dampen sustain.

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• The further you move the pickup away from the strings the warmer/bassier the tone will be.

• The further you move the pickup away from the strings the quieter the output will be.

• The further you move the pickup away from the strings the less focused the tone will get (it's picking up a broader area of string movement).

And so, as you can see, the idea of adjusting a pickup to get both more output AND a more bass just ain't gonna happen.  The only real cure, aside from putting in the right pickups for the job, would be possibly to look at changing tone cap values and/or volume and tone pots ... but neither is gonna get ya where you want to be if the pickups just aren't right!

Interested in more research on caps & pots?  Here ya go!

Electric Guitar Tone Capacitor (Caps) Values

https://wgsusa.com/blog/choose-perfect-guitar-tone-pot

https://wgsusa.com/blog/choose-perfect-guitar-volume-pot

https://wgsusa.com/blog/capacitors-what-you-need-know-about-differences-guitar-tone-caps

https://wgsusa.com/p90-pickups-les-pauls-and-treble-bleed-circuit-mods

https://wgsusa.com/tone-capicitors-and-rwrp-pickups-stratocasters