Mounting to the wood

[Graffiti62]

Hey everybody--

I'm planning out the plans I have for my Tele project, and one thing that I've seen, especially after seeing the G.E. Smith Tele and the Andy Summers Tele is that I want to mount the bridge pickup right to the wood. I don't mean to sound dumb, buw when they do that, do they mean smacking the bottom of the pickup down to the body, or are there springs between the pickup and the body?  To me, it seems like you lose a lot of adjusting capability when you slam it straight into the wood. Do you then use a shim blank in the pickup shape you're looking for to find that ideal height?  Help me out guys--I'm lost on this one!

Thanks!

 

[mayfly]

Well, from experience with my own Teles, if you screwed it right to the wood it would be way too low.  you will want some kind of spacing between the bottom of the pickup plate and the body.  The springs that would normally be used to space it from the bridge would work fine for this.

Regarding adjustability, yea, you're going to have to give that up if you want to screw the bridge PU right to the body - assuming you're using a traditional Tele bridge.

 

[jackthehack]

You can use springs an different mounting screws to direct mount any pickup to wood, but that makes them kind of "wobbly". Better to use some hardish compressable foam rubber under the pickup; many pickups designed to be mounted to wood like P90s or Jazz Bass pickups come with foam strips for this purpose.

 

[GoDrex]

My Parker had it's pickups screwed right into the wood. Underneath the pickups was some rather dense foam material. The foam acted as a kind of spring so if you loosened the screws it would raise the pickup up a bit. But I didn't care for it and I got pickup rings and springs and new screws for it. As far as I can tell there's absolutely no difference in sound.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

If it's right on the wood, there's no adjustment, and it's too low.  Bass pickups mount to the wood and are not suspended by rings or pickguards.  Foam is between the pickup and the body.  Beware though, by scewing it to the body, most often the threaded part of the pickup mount is usually unuseable, making it a one way trip without some sort of replacement.  In other words, it's not easy to un do if you don't like it.

 

[PitchShifter]

Apparently cutting up a mouse pad works well.

 

[Brightkj]

Tom Scholz of Boston has the pickups on one of his two LPs (Mighty Mouse, I think) screwed directly into the wood.  In an interview, he said there was no adjustment for the pickups, but doing so eliminated some extraneous frequencies caused by unwanted vibrations.  This isn't something new, considering that guitar has been around since the late 60s / early 70s and is still going strong today (I just saw Boston live a couple of weeks ago).  I don't know what the spacing differences are between and LP and a Tele, but at least you now know it can and has been done.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I have mine mounted to wood, but it's more so out of physical comfort than anything else.

It's very subjective to predict that doing so filters out certain frequencies.