The art of adjusting pickup height?

[Ted]

Guys - I installed my VHII's into my Les Paul this weekend and pretty much noticed the difference straight away. The biggest revelation was the sheer tone and clarity of the neck pickup, absolutely amazing. The bridge pickup however initially was noticeably quieter / less volume output and just seemed a bit weaker. I have since tweaked with its height (much closer to the strings now) and with noticeable improvements.

However, when using a dirty channel the neck and bridge seem to balance out in terms of volume, but on clean the neck is much more ballsy and the bridge does not sound like I would expect a bridge pickup to sound in a Les Paul. I think I need to fine tune it more, but wondered if there was an art to adjusting pickup height and getting the best out of them.

Thanks, Ted

[Twinfan]

Here's what I do:

* Screw the high and low E pole piece into the pickup until it's flush with the cover or bobbin (if it's uncovered).
* Fret the low E string at the last fret and adjust the pickup height until there's a 2mm gap from the top of the pole piece to the bottom of the string.
* Same again with the high E string
* Adjust the other pickup pole pieces until they're all 2mm from the bottom of each string when fretted at the last fret.
* If you have a calibrated set, do all this again for the other pickup
* Play the guitar clean/dirty and raise lower the pickup as necessary to get the best tone for your ears

I've settled on 2mm for my bridge MQ'd SG, 2mm all round on my Riff Raff'd SG and 3mm all round on my Mule'd Les Paul.

[WezV]

I usually do the neck pickup first and get the bridge to match

[Ted]

I usually do the neck pickup first and get the bridge to match

Sorry, what do you mean by match? Volume wise ?

I nailed my neck pickup straight away.

[WezV]

set the neck pickup where you want it then flip to the bridge pickup and adjust the height for a volume match.  Ideally you want the volume of each pickup to be similar as you switch between them.  

you can do this the otherway, i just prefer doing the neck first

 Remeber that strings are moving less the nearer they are to the bridge so if everything else is equal (pickup output/strength and distance from string) then the bridge will be quieter!  thats why neck pickups are usually weaker but you still need to get the heights right for the best volume match.  If you are not somebody who switches pickups often in a set then its not as important.

I would do all the adjustments with the amp set clean to begin with