Experimentation with pickup heights

[gtrguy]

    Experimentation with pickup heights
I have a certain SWR bass amp I like, but with a couple bass guitars I own there is just too much presence and string noise, etc. Now usually a lively bass is what you want, but with this amp, it’s just too much. I have been experimenting with lowering the pickups way down and found that fixes the problem. I also tried compression and EQ, but it did not quite do what I wanted. It seems there is a height ‘window’ on the pickup where you can maximize presence and tone to be the most lively. Too close to the strings and they hit the pickup and the magnetic force can limit sustain. Too far away and you start to lose that tone (which is what I was after). With other basses I own, this amp sounds perfect. I think it was designed to work best with Fender and Musicman type bass guitars.
Has anyone else tried this?
 

[David Houck]

I just looked through the Must Reads section and found several posts on pickup height.  My recollection is that there is some discussion on the pickup height's effect on tone.

http://club.alembic.com/index.php?board=29.0

[rv_bass]

I came across a similar thing recently.  I tend to have the treble kind of high on my amp, and for one of my  basses it highlighted the string slapping against the frets.  So I turned down the treble on the amp and compensated by adjusting bass/treble on the bass to get the tone back in the ball park of what I like, and it got rid of most of the string slap coming through the speaker.  Maybe try fooling around with this idea.