I finished my es-3 exactly as it said in the instruction manual but the neck pickup is really low compared to the pictures I have seen that people have posted here. I know that I soldered the loom properly because I tested the pickups before I installed them and I got sound from both of them. But when I play it I don't get sound from the neck pickup. Should I use a pickup ring made for the bridge pickup to raise the height of the neck pickup?
i would be surprised if pickup height will be the cause of no sound. Have you performed a tap-test (tap the pickup with a screwdriver in it's current installed position) to see if you are getting any sound from the neck pickup? I would expect even with a significant distance to the strings, it couldn't be more than 10mm, and you would still get some sound from that pickup.
A small mirror might also help in inspecting the pots and such before you have to go through the pain of pulling them out again. If you have accidentally disconnected the pickup lead from the volume pot or tone pot or switch, hopefully you will be able to see it and target that component only.
Yes I did the tap test and I had sound from both pickups. The neck pickup is more than 10 mm from the strings. That's why I was wondering I should use bridge pickup ring to raise the height of the neck pickup.
From my understanding, the neck pickup should have the taller of the two rings. (it is like this on other guitars i own as well)
I did just check out a video of someone installing them on youtube, and i noticed that the red/yellow colour scheme of the wiring diagram doesn't correspond with the pickup ring height.
When i get a chance, i will check the pickups I have for an ES-1GT I am building and see if it is also backwards.
I guess the question will be - what is correct, the wire colour or the pickup ring height? How can you know if the correct pickup is being used for the neck vs bridge. It might just be that they are the same pickup anyway, but we will need someone from pitbull to confirm this.
Oops, my bad, I just checked out my guitars and some more photos online, and it looks like the bridge pickup is generally the higher one. In this case, the video I linked to probably has the pickups being installed backwards, and the yellow is the neck pickup as per the diagram. I have experimented with 10mm gap, and pickups should still work at this distance. It might be time to double check a tap-test or send a photo so some more experienced builders can help
Thanks for the information. I have the shorter ring at the bridge because that's what it looked like from all the photos I saw, maybe that's the problem. I know I mounted them according to the wiring diagram on the Pitbull website so if it's backward then I have them that way. I don't think they were marked as neck and bridge but I don't really remember, they may be the same.
How you position the pickup rings depends entirely on the guitar. They are there to bring the pickup up to a reasonable height below the strings and hopefully (parallel) to the strings. So what works on one guitar may not work on another guitar.
On the ES-3, the taller pickup ring needs to go in the neck position, whereas on a Les Paul, the taller one would go in the bridge position.
Here's my ES-3, and you can see that the ring angle is also swapped compared to a Les Paul (where the thinner edge of the ring would be towards the neck in both instances). I have a feeling I also sanded the bases for a better fit and to get the tops parallel with the strings.
You can of course raise the height of the pickup in the ring to bring it near the strings. It isn't meant to stay level with the top. Unless the ES-3 kit has changed significantly since I got mine, then the tall ring and adjusting the height by 7mm or so should get you there.
The kit pickups quite often have B or N stamped on the bottom plate, for bridge or neck position. Because the string vibration amplitude is greater in the neck position, the bridge pickup has more coil windings to try and balance the output from the two pickups. But it's easier to check with a multimeter (and not all the pickups have B and N on them). Put a lead into the jack, set the volumes and tones to 10, and then select the neck and then the bridge pickup on their own, whilst measuring resistance across the tip and the sleeve of the jack on the other end of the lead. The readings should be in the region of 6k ohms to 10k ohms, and the bridge pickup will normally be between 300 to 600 ohms more than the neck pickup (due to the extra number of coil windings).
Also note that the cheap kit strings (the ones in the clear packet) are rubbish and don't have a great output or balance, so either use the Ernie Balls that Pit Bull should have put in with the kit, or whatever strings and gauge you normally use.
I presume you have managed to set the the action up to the way you like it (as the neck angle on these kits is generally found to be too shallow, resulting in high actions)? A high action will have the strings further away from the pickup rings.
Last edited by Simon Barden; 11-09-2021 at 12:15 AM.
Thanks so much for the information Simon, I thought maybe the rings should be reversed (taller at neck, shorter at bridge), but I thought that might be sacrilegious to the guitar gods. Makes sense though. I'll try that and check to make sure I have the pickups in the correct place at the same time. Thanks again.
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