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So you calculate the lowest the pickups can get and drill the screw hole deep enough to accommodate that?

I imagine you wax the screws so they turn easier.

Would the body of a guitar like that have to be thicker than one that uses mounting rings or mounts the pickups in the guitar scratch plate?

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Most guitar bodies will be thick enough to accommodate almost any pickup mounted that way. Direct mounting screws are generally shorter than through-scratchplate screws.

Another way to provide some height adjustment on a direct-mounted pickup is to put some dense foam between the back of the pick and the bottom of the cavity.

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Surgical rubber tubing is sometimes used around the screw instead of springs or foam as well. And like curtisa says direct mounts generally take up less depth than ring mounted pick-ups. When you think about it, it's hard to imagine adjusting them any more than a quarter inch, if even that.

SR

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Instruments specifically for direct mounting are sometimes made so that the pickups screw "hard" to the body. That is, each cavity can be cut to a specific depth for a specific pickup that the body of the pickup is in strong contact with the body. In those instances, the rubber or springs are not necessary. I did this with my '51 P-bass.

Some people swear it makes a difference (but bring no proof to the table) whilst others swear it doesn't (likewise). I imagine that the only difference it might make is if the pickup is slightly microphonic....

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20 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

 

Some people swear it makes a difference (but bring no proof to the table) whilst others swear it doesn't (likewise). I imagine that the only difference it might make is if the pickup is slightly microphonic....

It makes a huge difference when you are calculating how deep to rout.

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  • 2 months later...

I sometimes wish that mounting system Dimarzio had back in the early 1980's to advertise/test drive their pickups would have caught on. The pickup would be attached to a removable block that snapped into the back of the guitar.  The pickup holes were routed clean through.  This way you could test out pickups directly in the store instead of having to buy one, take it home and install it, then reverse the process again and again until you find something you like.

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  • 1 month later...
On 8/20/2016 at 1:20 AM, Prostheta said:

People think that the half inch of wood removed from behind the pickup is where all the sustains live...

Well I can say for a fact that Sustain doesn't live behind any of my pickups.  That is where Dust and Pickdust live in their hovel. Across the street from them lives Sweat Gunk and Blood Drops.  All  of whom are getting evicted rather soon.  Sustain lives between the neck plate and the neck.  He says those other folks are just too trashy for his taste.

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  • 4 weeks later...

True, but we've all seen the videos explaining where once pickups and amps come in, the actual construction material of an electric guitar is really reduced.  Acrylic guitars sound good, metal guitars sound good (my only experience playing/hearing was test driving a Jackson Roswell once), high end wooden guitars sound good, low end wood guitars sound good, MDF (Mosrite) guitars sound good.  the only common factor they all need regardless of materials used is quality construction and a good setup.  I thnk the only real mitigating factor in the end would be which guitar sounded fuller and which sounded thinner.  That to me would be only different between the instruments materials mass and density.  Before anyone says anything, all instruments would be played through the same exact rig, and all tuned to standard tuning.  All instruments would have to have same body shape and scale.  All hardware, electronics, strings, and frets would be the same (components from the same manufacture lot if possible).This way we are comparing different apples of the same sub species but from different orchards instead of apples to oranges.

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