Where do you pluck your Strat?

[darkandrew]

I've recently bought an HSS superstrat but having played HH guitars (mainly L.P. and similar) exclusively in the past I'm finding it difficult to find a position for my right hand. With Les Pauls and similar, I play between the pickups which means that there's plenty of room under the string for the pick, however playing a HSS at this spot leads to my pick hitting on the middle pickup. So, I was wondering where more experienced players of SSS and HSS guitars pluck?

Edited March 11, 2019 by darkandrew

[Skinnyman]

I tend to move my hand around, depending on the sound I want. Now i think about it, I probably get the gap between neck and mid or the gap between mid and bridge depending on the tone I'm after.

But i don't think I'd hit the pickups anyway even playing over them. Could yours be set a bit high? Or the string height too low at the bridge?

Or do you have a lot of pick showing?

All that said, I'm not a brilliant guitarist so there may be a more credible contributor along shortly to give a more useful answer....

[darkandrew]

12 hours ago, Skinnyman said:

But i don't think I'd hit the pickups anyway even playing over them. Could yours be set a bit high?

I have been experimenting with pickup heights to get the best tone and the best volume balance between the bridge humbucker and the two single coils - what's the gap between your neck and middle pickup pole pieces and the top and bottom strings? I've set mine to about 2mm on the bottom "e" and then adjusted the treble side so that the pickup is parallel to the guitar body and therefore nearer to the top "e" due to the lower saddle height at that end.

[Skinnyman]

The pickups on mine are slightly lower under the bottom, low E than they are under the top, treble 'e'.

The bridge saddles follow a gentle arc that reflects the fretboard radius.

I downloaded a set of instructions from the Fender website on 'how to set up your Stratocaster' and they worked nicely for me. With the string fretted at the 22nd fret I must have about 4mm clearance to the poles for b and e (a bit less under the d and g as the poles stick out more) and about 3 mm under the E and a.

(Measurement guessed owing to temporary lack of ruler)

I'll see if i can find the instructions and post a link but i think a Google search turned them up.

[RichieSambuka]

On guitars of mine that had a single mid pickup I had it screwed down flat as I would keep catching it

 

[jazzyvee]

On 11/03/2019 at 21:03, Skinnyman said:

I tend to move my hand around, depending on the sound I want. Now i think about it, I probably get the gap between neck and mid or the gap between mid and bridge depending on the tone I'm after.

But i don't think I'd hit the pickups anyway even playing over them. Could yours be set a bit high? Or the string height too low at the bridge?

Or do you have a lot of pick showing?

All that said, I'm not a brilliant guitarist so there may be a more credible contributor along shortly to give a more useful answer....

I actually don't really think that much about where I play as after all these years my hand just goes to were it the sound needs to come from. When playing fast funk style rhythms or chopping reggae I tend to play over the last few frets at the end of the neck so that I can't dig in too hard and get a more even sound.