Stratitis - watch how pickups can make your guitar sound much weird

[@desertroott]

Awesome video man. Thanks for this. Straight and to the point and exactly the info I needed.

[@erdtree_larry]

Now this is what I would call a Pro Tip!! I had this weird minor 2nd/semitone dissonance thing going on(at least that's how I would have described it at first), on my low E and A strings, but none of the others. I've been doing a ton of research on fretbuzz, and making adjustments at the saddle(raising string) height. This changed the characteristic of the sound a bit, but it was still there. My problem is that I was incorrectly classifying the issue as a slight fret buzz at first(instead of a warble or beat), and didn't even consider that the pickups were influencing the strings. Turns out all of my pickups were high and flat...and it was effecting the low E and A strings most because they have more ferrous metal in them than the high e, b, g & d. I made minor adjustments to pickup height on that side and slowly tuned the horrible sound away. Sounds great now. Thank you so much!!

[@mihailmilev9909]

Wow that sounds awesome lol. What did u do abt the modifications u made for the "fret buzz"?

[@erdtree_larry]

@@mihailmilev9909 Well, that's the thing, it only sounded like it was a fret buzz, but I couldn't find the buzz anywhere. It was the pickup magnets pulling on the low strings that was causing the sound, and not strings hitting a fret or anything. Once the adjustments were made to the pickup height(by lowering the pickups) it started to go away until I got it to the sweet spot where the noise was gone but the pickups were still responsive.

[@Perasis]

Never knew about this, thank you!

[@neverenoughguitars8276]

Not only do you get the warble/out of tune thing but classic pickups will also increase string buzz. I upgraded my strat to a set of dimarzio area noiseless pickups and I was able to lower my action a bit and still have no buzz compared to the old original pickups.

[@freddiefreeman4119]

Spent ages setting up the action and intonation on my tele, action and intonation is beautiful but making some weird noises! Thanks for this I can now sort this easily 👍🏼🎸

[@achilleszaluar5825]

awesome explanation!

[@gundrillerman4810]

Holy fuck ty ! I thought I was losing my mind! Now I sound great ! Ty so much and may your arm hair grow like the mighty oak

[@romieomichael]

Why my american strat only 2nd strings very slow? How to up that sound?can you help me

[@sentiyatetjamir6710]

I have a squier tele. The problem i have is that the high e string doesn't resonate much. Also the note picked up by the pickup sounds very minimal compared to the other strings. Can somebody please help.

[@alexanderzerka8477]

Heat up the pole piece with a high wattage soldering iron to soften the wax holding it together and gently squeeze the pole piece from the bottom to raise it. It's not meant to be moved, so there's a chance it will go wrong, but it will fix the problem. Otherwise, learn to play that string harder.

[@leftymadrid]

Yes!!!!!! A Stratocaster is a gem of a guitar, I remember when I got my 1st. Stratocaster, I loved it to pieces, then I went and touch the height of the strings, wondered why those saddles where not straight up and even, so I put them all nice and even!! (I swear I actually did this!!!) So put some fresh new strings and plugged her in, and.........WTF!!!!#!# it sounded like shit in a slow blender!!!! So I went back to Sam Ash (Los Angeles,California) told the salesman, what I did, he fell to his knees from the heaviest laughter I've ever seen, made the whole store look in our direction, as he kept repeating "I can't fucking believe you did that to your guitar"!!!!!!!!

[@RNRWorkshop]

Aw man, that’s horrible of them. I’ve probably been to them. Are they across from GC on Sunset? I recall a Mesa Boogie shop near there too.

[@leftymadrid]

@@RNRWorkshop hey there :-) yeah, GC is right across from them...

[@lorencing]

Mui interesante! One other question, how close can you put pickups in a guitar, do too close magnetic fields change the tone of a pickup? For example, I moded my Pacifica, HB bridge, Tele neck and now want to put a P90 like HB in the middle, would this affect the tone of the other two pickups?

[@RNRWorkshop]

Good question. Unfortunately I don't have a definitive answer. But I think when you shove two pickups together there will ultimately be some interaction. Take for instance a humbucker. If the magnetic fields of the two connected coils were working in opposition to each other, you'd likely get a weak output. But if you've got two separate pickups, a couple of inches apart, the magnetic interaction would be greatly reduced. As I understand it, distance reduces interaction in an inversely proportional way. Considering what you're doing is putting three pickups in a guitar, and Fender have been doing it for ages with Strats, I don't think you'll get any serious change. That said… of course if you have two pickups running at the same time, there's obviously going to be an overall tonal shift. But I doubt very much the middle pickup will cause any problems for the other two when they're being played alone. Perhaps the extra magnetic pull from the middle pickup will affect the strings more than anything. Who knows. Best thing is to have fun experimenting.

[@lorencing]

@@RNRWorkshop thanks for your input, will do exactly that, put it in and see what happens.

[@taylorzomer5223]

I have Strat that I put humbuckers in, and around the 12th fret the b and mostly g soung like they have a wah like filter on them... Do you have any advice for that?

[@RNRWorkshop]

Really hard to say what this is without hearing for myself. The only thing that springs to mind is a pickup phasing issue, but if that’s the case, that wah effect should be evident regardless of the fret.

[@goodear1540]

The 3rd string does it no matter if you lower the pickups or not.

[@gbass7328]

Had to back them so far off that now I have no output wtf!

[@givemeajackson]

i can't get the god damn stratitis out of my vintage thomas blug. i can dump my pickups right into the body and i just can't get rid of it on the A string

[@surenbono6063]

.. can you build a guitar that have pickups even on all of it's frets ... mad scientist version with neodymium magnets and what nots..

[@leftymadrid]

BUT!!!! Once you learn all the goodies you need to know about a Stratocaster, it's all frigen worth it!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@ewoutketelaar8708]

Great video!!! My home made Red Special sounds with much distortion not great, especially on the g-string. I'm gonna try to lower the pick ups! But again, great demo!

[@guitarmemoir]

I am surprised the nickel coating on the strings provides enough ferro magnetic material to be affected by the magnetic field.

[@alexanderzerka8477]

They're steel strings. It's not the nickel.

[@DaisyHead666]

One of my guitars has this going on, and its a fuckin LTD viper.. No clue what the problem is.

[@JC-11111]

Yea, no. It happens on guitars that aren't Strats. And it happens when the pickups are nowhere near the strings. So, what is it on a Gibson? Les Paulitis? Gretschitis on a Gretsch?

[@alexanderzerka8477]

It's a stupid name and not a lot of people use it. It's just pickup interference.

[@jroc2201]

If you want to put up with weird stuff happening, keep haning out with musicians, Haha!

[@vorpalblades]

You've got it wrong. Magnetic dipoles don't work that way.

[@RNRWorkshop]

vorpal blade - That's it? You're not going to share with the rest of the class?