Electric Guitar Pickup Heights Setup

Setting the height of your pickups at first thought seems like an elementary adjustment with few pitfalls. However, as you will see below, it can be quite a complex adjustment to get right and exactly to your tastes. There are also a few ways you can go wrong - particularly with certain types of pickup.

This is a skill everyone should learn to do themselves, as the exact settings are down to personal choice, and depend on what you want out of your pickups. In the words of John P Sheehy: "Having a tech do this is like having you mechanic adjust the seat in your car for you."

How to Setup an Electric Guitar

A guitar setup is an essential prerequisite when it comes to getting the most out of your instrument. A factory setup guitar is likely to have general playability issues and intonation problems, which can make playing the guitar impossible since it is always out of tune. Having your instrument set up involves adjusting the hardware of a guitar and fine tuning the instrument so that these obstacles are removed.

To complete a basic setup you will need to adjust the neck, string height and saddle position.