Humbucker Pole Piece Adjustment - Sound Comparison and Tutorial!

Thank you for this video dude!!!! I bought an epiphone sg and it was too heavy in my low end after i adjusted the bridge, once i adjusted the pickups it sounds incredible 🤘🙏

You’re not supposed to follow the fretboard radius, instead you should follow the string core diameters, which are responsible for string output. Look at a staggered single coil pickup for reference of the pattern (with the exception of the G string, which is still today provided with the tallest polepieces, because historically it was a wound string and its core part was the thinnest). At the end of the process, the D and high E polepieces should be the highest, the A and B intermediate, the E and G lowest. I fine-set them with a clean uncompressed tone by picking evenly, aiming to achieve the exact output volume from each string, which is one of the two reasons I do this to all my humbucker equipped guitars. With modern flatter fretboard radius, you only need very small differences in polepieces height, sometimes even just 0.1 mm is fine. The second reason I do this is, as per the aim of your video, tone adjustment. So you can move all polepieces equally up or down, keeping the stagger pattern explained above, to vary the tone while keeping the volume even across the strings. I agree with your description that the more you raise the polepieces, the more you add mids, pick attack and clarity. However, if you lower the whole pickup a bit at the same time, you’ll be able to add mids (or reduce bass, if you want to see it that way), without adding too much attack or treble. This can really compensate for a dull sounding guitar or pickup, or a bass-heavy/scooped sounding pickup.

From my experience and understanding of humbucker pickups, raising pole pieces can do two things. One, it can be used to balance volume between strings. Two, it can be used to change balance between the 2 coils. By raising the poles on the the coil closest to the bridge, more power is produced from string vibration because it's position in the magnetic field has become more optimal in that coil. That coil gets louder. By also lowering the entire pickup to retain the original volume, you can brighten the pickup. By moving a pickup closer to the strings the volume goes up and the note sounds more focused. By changing the balance of the coils, the sound can be affected in a way to emphasize a difference similar to what you can hear picking over one coil vs the other. A small adjustment can go a long way. Usually i do a 1/4 turn at a time on all adjustments. Original gibson humbuckers are know for unbalanced coils. It was a quirk of the manufacturing at the time. Wordy i know.

7:14 flat 7:37 raised I think that in this part the raised polepiece makes the pickup less saturated, which is not so good for distortion. But for the raised polepiece clean sound sounds pretty good.

Pertaining to the Gibson Dirty Fingers pickup, do you also adjust the pole pieces on the top coil as well as the bottom?

The reason some of your polepiece screws are stripped is because when the pickups were potted the wax was too hot or the coils were left in the wax bath for too long. This began to melt the plastic coil forms and blunt the threads in the plastic. I'm pretty sure the previous owner of your guitar never touched the screws because the slots were all about the same height and they were lined up perpendicular to the strings. Also, the great deal of wax that curled up out of the coil when you turned the screws tells me they were never adjusted in the past. A previous owner would probably have cleaned off the shavings of wax if he had adjusted the screws. I have that exact same guitar, and I really liked the way it sounded in the music store. I liked the amp I was using to try it out so much that I bought it too. When I took the combo home, after a cleaning and a setup with fresh strings I adjusted the pole screws to balance the output of the strings. I found the plain g and the low E louder than the other strings, so I left the pole screws down where they were. The high e and b, as well as the d string, were softer, so I raised the pole screws to boost the output of those strings. End result was that I liked the sound of my little rig even better. I still have the receipt from the sale, and I can see that I paid $169.50 plus tax for the guitar and a Vox DA-5 modeling amp back in 2014. What a bargain. The amp only puts out five watts max, and I still use it to jam and play at open mikes and stuff. It's really that loud. I now use an Epiphone Les Paul Prophecy Custom, but my little old LTD is a great backup if I break a string.

What guitar is in this video?

good video

I'm new to these pickups I've never own an gutiar with these how to do i lower my neck pickups

Other than the guitar being out of tune, it sounds more bass heavy with the pole pieces raised. Have you ever tried just raising the outermost pole pieces, and screwing the middle ones down in the shape of a frown, with all of them being lower than the outside ones? See what that gets you. It'll change it for sure, but pickups are strange creatures - each brand has its own voicing. You might like it....and you may not. Like my guitar tech said, you can always put it back....lol.

I think it sounded better before adjusting, both pickups. I think you may benefit from dropping the whole pick-up lower to compensate for raising the poles, neck sounds like the tuning is out of whack after Worth checking out the fine tuning, following the radius is all good but some strings ( unwound, especially G string) sound more prominent so compensate for best tone, do this with guitar plugged in and listen to each change made

Your B string sounds out of tune, perhaps pole pieces interfering with strings?

twisted up pole pieces make the sound dry or poor or sharper. Sometimes it's necessary. (IMHO) Thanks

Thanks, I solved a stuck pole piece problem with your solution! Magnetic screwdriver helps too.

I must have cheap pickups, no screws, so they took that ball out of the pickup set up process. Must be that the 2 screws for treble & bass is the only adjustments they want anyone to make.

Na,Its all in your head man ,Ive done that expearment with different guitars at different times ,Leave them the way they come ,You can ajust the whole pickup up or down for more or less volume .The Poles effect nothen unless you have ears like a beagle .

whatever not much of difference sweet guitar though