Starfire dearmond pickup height

[hobo]

Hi Everybody,

I am fortunate to have a 63 Starfire III with DeArmonds. My teacher put some doubt in my mind. I am grateful, in advance, for your opinions.

I have the action set pretty low and the sound is most excellent. However, the strings are a scant 1/8 inch (maybe even 3/32") off the bridge pickup. My teacher mused that the magnets might be effecting the sustain by being so close. With the exception of sour notes and fat fingers, the tone seems great to me.

Is this anything?

I have attempted to post some pictures.

thanks a bunch,

Ned

(edit to make clear that it is the bridge pickup in question)

 

[Default]

Strat pickups are stringpullers if they are set too close, but we'll have to wait for the pros to weigh in on this.

If you like it and the tone works for you, I would worry about it. IMHO
Nice guitar! :mrgreen:

 

[hobo]

Thanks Default,

I appreciate the response. Perhaps I should have asked this august body if anyone else had strings that passed so near to the bridge pickup.

 

[gilded]

hobo,

Guild DeArmond pickups have adjustable pole-piece/magnets. You can always drop them down below the surface of the pickups, if you or your teacher find them to be 'too strong'. Who knows, it might help.

 

[hansmoust]

Hi Everybody,

I am fortunate to have a 63 Starfire III with DeArmonds. My teacher put some doubt in my mind. I am grateful, in advance, for your opinions.

I have the action set pretty low and the sound is most excellent. However, the strings are a scant 1/8 inch (maybe even 3/32") off the bridge pickup. My teacher mused that the magnets might be effecting the sustain by being so close. With the exception of sour notes and fat fingers, the tone seems great to me. Is this anything? Ned

Hello Ned,
These old DeArmonds can pull quite a bit on your strings. I guess when these pickups were designed nobody used really light strings, so string-pull was hardly ever a problem. If you use strings lighter than .011 to .049 it might become a problem when your strings are really close to the magnets/poles though, especially on the bass strings.
I have several guitars with those pickups and depending on the neck angle, the strings are closer or further away from the strings, but in general I don't have a lot of problems with string pull and I do not use real heavy strings.

Now I also have a Stratford Starfire and it has 3 of these DeArmond pickups. On that guitar I had to lower the magnets/poles a little bit because the combined pull of the pickups definitely interfered with the vibrating pattern of the bass strings

As you can see the poles of the low E-string are about flush with the top of the pickup. I guess I could go lower, but in this case it was not necessary. The distance between the low E-string and the top of the bridge pickup is about 1/8th of an inch.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
http://www.guitarsgalore.nl

 

[hobo]

Thank you Hans - that picture of the three DeArmonds is most seductive.

My Starfire is strung with 11s and so that may address my concern. As an aside, you know the teacher I reference. I am in Santa Fe and he contributed to your book.

I am honored by your substantial reply.

Ned

 

[Walter Broes]

Yep, what Hans said. IF your pickups have the plastic spacers under them, you could always remove those, ten minute job.

Also, I've found on my own SFIII that in order to balance the string output on those pickups, I have to set the bass string poles lower than the treble ones. On my own guitar the bass string poles are set something like 2mm beneath the surface of the pickup.

 

[Clem]

I have a '62 DE-500 and the 1st string is only 1/32 to 1 /16th above the bridge pickup. The treble side of the bridge is adjusted about as low as it can go. There still seems to be good downward pressure on the bridge but I guess it's going to need a neck reset one of these days. Going to be difficult to find someone that I trust to do the job.