Strings hitting pick-up - Short?

glenmini · 31st January 2012

I have a seymour duncan cool rails pickup in my Strat - to cut a long story short i have found why this pickup failed at a recent gig.

I found that if two strings touch the pickup at the same time it dies! Does anyone else know of this problem and what i can do about it - process of elimination proves its the pick up and i have to hit the pickup to bring it back to life - although not working currently

Do i need a new pick-up of is this a problem everyone knows about but me.

Glenn

mattseidel · 31st January 2012

Sounds like your pickup is set too high - the strings should never touch the pickup anyway. I'd either set the PU a little lower or raise the action a bit.

Bill@WelcomeHome · 31st January 2012

Take the guitar to a tech to have the pickup heights properly set. The volumes among them need to balance, and the heights needs to account for the string excursion.

drbob1 · 31st January 2012

You have a couple of problems:

1. As others have said, if the strings can touch the pickup it's too high. Single coil type pickups have a narrow magnetic field, set too high they'll damp the strings and kill sustain. Strat style pickups are either screwed into the body, in which case turn the screws clockwise to drop the pickup down at least 1/8" below the string. If you have a pickguard, it works the opposite way (counterclockwise to drop the pickup). Once it's down an 8th, try moving it up or down a 1/2 turn on the screw to see if the sustain gets better or worse. You want to put it just a hair lower than when the sustain starts to go away...

2. Even if two strings touch the pickup, that shouldn't kill the output. It's likely that some of the inner windings are shorting to the pole pieces and when two strings touch it completes a short circuit. The pickup will probably need to be replaced sooner or later (or you can rewind it if you're a DIYer, you can get small diameter wire like that from Radio Shack and instructions on the net).

31st January 2012	#1
glenmini Gear interested Joined: Jan 2012 Posts: 1 Thread Starter	Strings hitting pick-up - Short? I have a seymour duncan cool rails pickup in my Strat - to cut a long story short i have found why this pickup failed at a recent gig. I found that if two strings touch the pickup at the same time it dies! Does anyone else know of this problem and what i can do about it - process of elimination proves its the pick up and i have to hit the pickup to bring it back to life - although not working currently Do i need a new pick-up of is this a problem everyone knows about but me. Glenn

31st January 2012	#3
Bill@WelcomeHome Lives for gear Joined: Feb 2010 Posts: 4,188	Take the guitar to a tech to have the pickup heights properly set. The volumes among them need to balance, and the heights needs to account for the string excursion. __________________ "We have a situation where somebody has learned that 'tape' sounds good. Tape doesn't sound good. Tape sounds like crap. But sometimes good stuff gets put on tape." "Putting crap to tape...sounds like crap." Show business: we're all here because we're not all there. Resistance is not futile. It is voltage divided by current. "I do not think that the wireless waves I have discovered will have any practical application,..." Heinrich Rudolf Hertz

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31st January 2012	#2
mattseidel Gear Head Joined: Dec 2011 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 74 3 Reviews written	Sounds like your pickup is set too high - the strings should never touch the pickup anyway. I'd either set the PU a little lower or raise the action a bit.

31st January 2012	#4
drbob1 Lives for gear Joined: Nov 2009 Posts: 1,420 3 Reviews written	You have a couple of problems: 1. As others have said, if the strings can touch the pickup it's too high. Single coil type pickups have a narrow magnetic field, set too high they'll damp the strings and kill sustain. Strat style pickups are either screwed into the body, in which case turn the screws clockwise to drop the pickup down at least 1/8" below the string. If you have a pickguard, it works the opposite way (counterclockwise to drop the pickup). Once it's down an 8th, try moving it up or down a 1/2 turn on the screw to see if the sustain gets better or worse. You want to put it just a hair lower than when the sustain starts to go away... 2. Even if two strings touch the pickup, that shouldn't kill the output. It's likely that some of the inner windings are shorting to the pole pieces and when two strings touch it completes a short circuit. The pickup will probably need to be replaced sooner or later (or you can rewind it if you're a DIYer, you can get small diameter wire like that from Radio Shack and instructions on the net).