Do they really work?

[RUExp?]

Sorry,, thought that people would understand that you'd want the signal to be clean - distortion would throw off the VU meter.

 

 

Right but even by ear a clean sound would be prefered.

[mikeSF]

not really. Also , he said that it was a ballpark setting to start with ayway, not the end all be all of things.

ah well, i tried...
one day you'll understand this.
[time passes] -->

[bluesboy]

-->

i understand exactly what you meant... you meant use your ears. hooking up to a meter is something different to try which is a cool idea

[Vibroluxman]

i understand exactly what you meant... you meant use your ears. hooking up to a meter is something different to try which is a cool idea

 

 

I rarely actually hook it up to a meter. Generally I just adjust by ear. If it's ever a point where it's just bugging me and I can't get it by ear, then I hook it up to my DAW and see what the level is for each string, and adjust them to be the same.

[Wyatt]

The pole piece are adjustable in order to compensate for the diameter of the string *core* (not counting windings). The core is what the PU reads and the larger the core, the louder the signal. Generally they are balanced to match the cores, meaning that they get lower going from high-E to G (as cores get larger), then to compensate for the reduced size of the core again, they get a slight bump around the D string (because the core of a wound string is smaller than a plain G) and start working their way down again to the Low-E.

 

Fingerboard radius can be a good factor in this too, since it is still about relative distance between pole-piece and string, but it is *not* the reason for adjustable or stagger poles, I would venture to guess whoever first guessed that has little knowledge as to how PU's work.

 

I find the best way to fine tune is by ear. Hearing is subject to perception, and you want what you perceive to sound balanced, and not what some device tells you is the mechanical zero point.