GuitarSam eZine Volume 30 April 2001   Subscribe Email us Back to Index

Chip Wilson: Guitar Tech Talk

Guitar Tech Talk is from Chip Wilson in New Orleans. If you have a question about guitar building, repair, or maintenance, send it to Chip at jumpinsomethin@aol.com. Musician/luthier Chip Wilson lives in New Orleans, LA. Chip worked with Borys Guitars when master archtop builder James L. D'Aquisto served as a consultant before Chip opened his own business, Better Guitars. Better Guitars served as an authorized repair shop for most of the top US guitar manufacturers. Chip recently wrote a book review for Guitarmaker, the quarterly publication of the Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans (ASIA). Chip is now primarily a performer in New Orleans, typically playing 25 to 30 gigs per month, as a soloist, sideman, and with his own band A Jumpin' Somethin'. His 1999 release "A Jumpin' Somethin'" was nominated for Best Traditional Jazz CD By A Louisiana Artist by Offbeat Magazine, the most widely distributed Louisiana music publication. "A Jumpin' Somethin'" can be obtained online at www.louisianamusicfactory.com, or by contacting Chip at jumpinsomethin@aol.com Guitar Tech Talk Hi Chip, I saw your article about guitar repair and thought of a question I have had for a while now. I own a beautiful 1980 Epiphone Emperor with a tobacco sunburst finish. The instrument is near perfect, and I have fitted it with an adjustable bridge and light gauge nickel flatwound strings. It is a good player, but the highs seem to be lacking. My instructor noticed that I really attack the E string when I pick, and I think that is because of the lower volume that this string produces. Is this normal for this instrument? I can adjust the tone knob for more treble, but the string to string balance is still off, and I don't really like the edgy sound that adding treble can produce. The instrument has the original two humbucker pickups with the gold finished covers. Should they be replaced or can they be adjusted somehow?   Chip answers: I received many responses to my articles of the last two months, and responded as quickly as I could to all of them. It's gratifying to see that Tech Talk has some readers, and that I am managing to impact positively on them and their guitars. Or maybe I am overestimating myself. . . . Either way, let's talk about pickup adjustment on electrics. String output, relative volume between pickups, and treble/bass balance are the main issues in pickup adjustments. Some manufacturers actually include instructions including precise measurements of the distance between the strings and the pickups. This is very helpful, a reflection of intensive R&D, but ultimately, our ears must determine what sounds good. One important note: string gauges play a big role here. The heavier the string, the greater force it exerts on the pickup magnetic field, and subsequently the greater output and fatter tone it yields. Also, the relative output between pickups will make a difference, especially in hot-rodded guitars such as my Tele-style Frankenstein with a '60s Teisco Del Ray neck pickup, middle lipstick pickup and Fender Lace Sensor (Red) bridge pickup. It took a bit of tweaking to get these puppies sounding good together, but it was worth it. Generally, the following suggestions are good for single or double coil (humbucking) pickups. It is common practice to set the relative pickup heights with the bridge pickup closer to the strings than the remaining pickups. The string vibrations near the bridge are less profound, so the pickups need to be a little hotter, and also this is what many of us use as our "lead sound." Try starting out with your bridge pickup anywhere from 3 to 5/32s from the E string on the treble side as a beginning point. Set the neck pickup a bit lower and split the difference if you have a middle pickup. I like to have the treble side of the pickup a bit closer than the bass side. This seems to help the balance between bass and treble. If the pickups are too close to the strings, the sound can be harsh and abrasive. On Strat-style instruments, the magnetism of the pole pieces can literally pull the string toward the pickup, creating a weird, chorus-like out-of-tuneness which also makes the instrument nearly impossible to intonate properly. It was a big relief to learn that fact in my early days, after struggling with Strat intonations for a while. Play your guitar through an amp, probably with a clean sound unless you just never use a clean sound. If you use one pickup much more than the others adjust that to a height that sounds good to you, and then adjust the others accordingly. Try to hear the difference in sound and volume between the different pickups, and adjust them up or down to balance them. A good way to do this is just to do a 1/4 turn on each screw, going up or down incrementally. If the pole pieces are adjustable, here is a procedure for adjustments, taught to me by jazz guitar great Herb Ellis. Set the high E closest, drop the B down, drop a plain G down further, and a wound G up to the height of the E. The D goes to about the height of the B, the A goes down and the low E about the height of the A to start. Then, play a G (note, not chord) on the high E, and compare the volume with the G on the B string and the G at the octave of the G string. Adjust until they are the same to your ear. Now play a D on the B string, G string and at the octave D, adjust. Try an A on the G, etc., continually tweaking the pole piece heights to get a uniform response. Try other notes across the fretboard to confirm what your ears are telling you. If you achieve a good balance between the individual pickups, and they are reasonably well matched, your combination sounds should be reasonably pleasing. If you get a very thin trebly combination sound with a significant drop in output, it could be your pickups are wired out of phase. Play some familiar stuff, use your effects, and then maybe put the guitar down for a while and come back to it with a little distance and perspective to make sure you are hearing what you think you are hearing. It's not rocket science, it's experimentation with a bit of patience, and it's great to familiarize yourself with your instrument in this way. There you go, hope it's cool. . . .   Chip Wilson Email jumpinsomethin@aol.com Web www.jumpinsomethin.com

ISSN: 1529-0956 Library Of Congress, Washington D.C. USA
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