Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Anyone have any suggestion on the following:
Raising the pickups (vintage toasters) on my 360 without having the grommets falling out.
Also, does raising the pickups give them more "pop" or volume?
Thanks--
Bob

Bob, I'm unclear why you would need to do this instead of just raising the volume on the amp ... are you trying to adjust the output relative to another guitar? Please explain further.

The pickups sounds fatter and more aggressive as well as louder when they're raised - it isn't quite the same as turning up at the amp. The bridge pickup especially seems to sound better when it's raised further.

Unless you can find some bigger grommets, you may want to change to the foam rings used on the High-Gains (and the Toasters on the 660) - they're slightly taller. They do change the tone of the pickups a bit though - by damping out some of the natural microphonics of the Toasters, they take a little of that slightly metallic top-end off. I much prefer the tone of the foam rings, but tastes vary. (No I'm not kidding by the way, it really does make an easily audible difference.)

doctorwho wrote:Bob, I'm unclear why you would need to do this instead of just raising the volume on the amp ... are you trying to adjust the output relative to another guitar? Please explain further.

Gary:
No, I'm not trying to adjust output relative to another guitar.
It just seems to me that pickups which are closer to the strings would capture and transmit more signal than if they were farther away.
It seems to go to reason that if one turns both guitar pickup volume controls full up with the pickups closer to the strings, that the signal to the amp would be greater than if the pickups were farther away from the strings. Perhaps like proximity effect in microphones
Does that make sense?
I'm relatively new to electric guitars, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
Thanks---
Bob

Makes perfect sense. I see where you are coming from, and I agree totally ... I've had to adjust pickup height on some guitars I bought because they were too low. Being closer to the strings does make an audible difference, and it is louder, too.

John's suggestions are good. An alternative is to remove the pickups and put a very, very small drop of superglue on the grommets in the corners and glue them to the pickup cover corner nuts (the ones the height adjustment screws go in are kept in place by the screws, of course) ... I saw this on a reissue toaster and it really helps with reinstallation.

Be careful - it is possible to raise them too high. Pickups too close to the strings will produce more wolf tones and pick up mechanical noise from the strings and your picking hand. Sustain is also reduced because the magnets pull more on the strings.

Simple. Get more grommets!

jdogric12aolcom wrote:Simple. Get more grommets!

Ditto that. +1. I was about to say the same thing.

paologregorio wrote:

jdogric12aolcom wrote:Simple. Get more grommets!

Ditto that. +1. I was about to say the same thing.

Yeah, I thought of that---- are you talking about stacking the grommets? Maybe super gluing two grommets together and then putting them into place? Seems logical enough.
Thanks---
Bob

I don't think you need to glue them in order to stack them, but it might make the job easier.

Thanks for the suggestions. I suppose that the stacking idea would work fine.
Thanks---
Bob

If two grommets are too much, you can cut one in half for a half-height increase.