“Some people like to adjust the stopbar all the way down the body, which will give the greatest possible break angle across the bridge. “Another thing you can do is adjust the height of the stopbar tailpiece,” Jim says. I suggest, in that instance, leaving both the E strings polepieces flush with the pickup and then raising them in for the B, G, D and A to provide that radius, as measured with a ruler or a radius gauge.” “But if you want you can adjust them to conform to the radius of the fingerboard, which for Gibson is a 12-inch radius. “Today it’s not quite that critical. Our factory spec, when we make the pickups, they’re pretty flat with the top of the cover, or the top of the bobbin if they’re open pickups. So, generally, pickup polepieces on the B string were set lower than the other strings. “So your G was a lot weaker sounding than the B string and then the B string, being thicker than E, would overpower that. “Years ago, standard string sets would feature a wound G with a relatively thin core,” Jim says. If you want a hotter sound, you can raise them up slightly.” 6. If you want a cleaner sound, you can lower those pickups. Then repeat the same procedure for the bridge pickup, except here we adjust the bridge to 3/64ths of an inch. “Starting with the neck pickup, you hold the high E string down at the highest fret and then measure the distance from the bottom of the high E string to the top of the pickup polepiece – and then do the same with the low E string. In the case of the Les Paul or an SG, that would be the 22nd fret. “To adjust the pickups, you hold both E strings down at the highest fret. You can adjust lower, for example, if you have lighter touch or play heavier strings – they don’t tend to buzz as much as lighter-gauge strings do.”Īdjust the pickup height up for a hotter sound and down for cleaner tones. Of course, those are our factory specs and your taste may vary. “Once you have those two sets of specs, you adjust your bridge accordingly and that dials in your action. Then on the low E string, we’re looking for a gap of 5/64ths of an inch from the top of the fret to the bottom of the low E string. In other words, that’s the gap we’re looking for between the 12th fret and the bottom of the high E string. “On electrics, our official spec is 3/64ths of an inch. “Once you’ve checked the nut height at the 1st fret, it’s time to check the action at the 12th fret,” Jim says. The other strings are graduated between those dimensions.” 4. And then on the low E string, we look for 2/64th of an inch between the top of the fret and the bottom of the string.
“At the 1st fret, we’ll look to have 1/64th of an inch between the top of the fret and the bottom of the high E string. “I’m not suggesting you should modify the height of the nut yourself but you should check it, in case work needs to be done. “Once your neck is adjusted, look at the action at the nut,” Jim explains.
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