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  #1  
Old 08-21-2018, 03:53 PM
Monsum Monsum is offline
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Posts: 473
Default Levelling undersaddle pickup

This time it's not a query but a successful story of fixing an uneven output from a LR Baggs element pickup. I thought I would share it here.

I've had three guitars with some kind of pickup comprising the element UST. All three had some balance issues. I don't know if I've been unlucky or it's a very common nuisance.
It was always the high E string which had lower output and in one case both E strings.
In the past, I had asked my guitar technicians to mend it and they did to some extent, but there was still some minor unevenness in volume.

My recently purchased Gibson J-15 had the same problem, so I decided to handle it myself and I'm not a handyman. I got some printing paper, made two shims, one for each E string and placed them between the bottom of the saddle slot and the pickup. Put everything together, plug in the guitar and both E strings turned out to be louder than the other ones. It took me three times to get it right but eventually I got a perfectly balanced output.
I haven't noticed any tone or volume loss so it seems it has worked well.
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Old 08-21-2018, 04:28 PM
jonfields45 jonfields45 is offline
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There are three little slips of very thin paper between the saddle and Element under the high E in my Element equipped guitar. I prefer a hot high E for covering classic rock leads on an acoustic. I am using 10s on that guitar and the volume of the high E with 12s relative to the others was "better" meaning louder and for 12s no paper was required.

I've over the years done this probably on about half of my UST equipped guitars for weak high E and too loud low E strings.
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