It’s often necessary to remove the pickguard to adjust a Tele’s neck pickup.
That’s fine when you can remove the pickguard. Instruments with 22-fret necks throw a challenge into the mix.
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Another look at the integrated saddle/piezo pickup. You’ll most often find these in Takamine guitars but there are variants around. Like this Epiphone pickup. The action needed a little finessing here and this version presented it’s own challenges.
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Advances in piezo materials paved the way for an evolution in under-saddle transducer pickup design. Let’s see the main types available now…
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First time you encounter a Takamine Palathetic pickup, you’re all, like, “Woah! Dude!? What gives?”
Yeah, it’s a bit weird-looking compared to most other under-saddle transducer pickups but there’s method behind Takamine’s madness.
Check it out… (Dude)…
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Normally, Id recommend a bone saddle as a good upgrade for an acoustic instrument. However, here’s a rare instance where I’d advise against bone. Takamine-style integrated pickups don’t always play nicely with bone saddles.
Find out more…
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Lowering the action on an acoustic guitar is generally a (relatively) straightforward task.
Unless, of course, your guitar has a Takamine-style ‘integrated pickup’. Then you need to regroup.
Get the low-down…
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Electric guitar pickups turn string vibrations into electricity. So do the piezo pickups often used in acoustic. The only difference is the way they do it.
We’ll talk more about the properties and problems of different acoustic pickups over the next few weeks so, for now, a piezo primer…
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Check it out. A treasure trove of Rowe-DeArmond information. This is what the web was made for.
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Obviously, as someone who installs pickups regularly, I often get asked for some recommendations. Players are considering an upgrade or swap and will hit me up for some advice on the tone of this or that pickup, or whether a particular pickup will suit the style they're going for. You know the sort of thing.
Click through and check out my advice…
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Now that we've looked at individual string balance for pickups, and looked at the problems with incorrectly adjusted pickups, let's get each of the pickups in your guitar or bass balanced so they sound good.
Let's go…
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After setting up a Precision Bass, I frequently get asked about the pickups. Players notice I've done something different there.
Well, it's an easy job to balance out the string output on a P-Bass. Check it out…
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The (possibly) weird, but (definitely) good method for adjusting your pickup pole screws…
If you've got adjustable pole-pieces on your pickups you can balance the output of individual strings so that none is too loud or quiet as you play across them. That's a great advantage.
Find out how to do it well. Check it out…
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