how close do you guys have your pickups to your strings. im trying to make pinch harmonics better.

Depends on the pickup.

EMGs Or other active pickups, get as close as possible without the string fretting against the edge when you fret the highest fret.

Passives, leave a couple of millimetres between the pickup and the strings.

Do a few bends on the high e on the highest fret, through some distortion. If the pickup is too high the magnets will pull on the strign causing the notes to die or whine or give soem weird feedback. If thats happens, back off the pickup until it no longer happens.

The closer the pickup to the strings, the higher the output, but you get less dynamics or something.

No doubt other people will clarify, I just woke up

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heres the thing that happens with higher output... your sound doesnt decay the same it would with lower output... the slope is changed... but that doesnt really matter because its really hard to notice. The only change that makes is when you pick harder or softer, the output volume doesnt change as much as it would with cooler pickups.
Another thing that comes with high output is the EQ of the pickup is changed, the bass gets louder, and the trebels and mids get quieter, which to some people means its less dynamic because the decreased trebel means it wont reach peak volume as quickly meaning its less responsive to attack.

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if they're too close the magnets can pull too strongly on the strings and lower sustain.. or the strings can hit the pickups and that's no good. just go pretty much as close as you can without hitting the strings and you should be fine.

don't lower them because you're sloppy and end up accidentally hitting the pickups while picking notes/strumming chords, though.

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Ive heard that with some high output pickups like the X2N, its advisable to keep it farther away from the pickup than normal to make it sound right. Well, I guess its pretty much what all you guys said about keeping it far enough so the magnet doesnt pull it down.

On my humbucker guitar I keep the bridge pickup pretty close to the strings, but the neck pickup is at most halfway out of the casing. This seems to work very well for me.

On my single coil it's a similar pattern. This is how the luthier set them when I took it in for a set-up. I haven't really seen any need to change it.

mhmm...

Basically its just gotta be adjusted depeding on what pickup you use, the guitar your using, your amp, your amp settings, guitar settings, type of music you play, volume you use, what color hat you have on, your penis length...


I dont think you can really get an answer because every guitar/pickup will be different.

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