I hope someone can give me a little help. I have an old Les Paul Custom and I just noticed that when the high E string is played above around the 10th fret it has a vibrato to it. The notes just kind of oscillate instead of sounding with a clean tone. Any guesses? Is this a pickup problem? I tried on two different amps and the upper notes on the 1st string always waver. Thanks in advance for any advice.

It's more noticable with single coils. But, if the pickup is too close to the string, it's magnetic pull can stop the strings vibrations early. This kills the sustain. I think it could be the cause of your problem. I'd try lowering the bridge pickup back away from the strings. Let me know, if this helps.

EHHHHHH (this is seriously a wild guess) how high are the pickups? sometime the magnets might be too close to the string, im not totally sure about that, just kind of made me thing of strat pickups too close to the big E string and it gives off kind of a whacky augmented tremly kinda sound commonly known as "Stratitus" just a guess man, pickups could be too high by the little strings or, could be a wood thing ect not really sure

quote:

Originally posted by Swain:
It's more noticable with single coils. But, if the pickup is too close to the string, it's magnetic pull can stop the strings vibrations early. This kills the sustain. I think it could be the cause of your problem. I'd try lowering the bridge pickup back away from the strings. Let me know, if this helps.

HA JINX!! lol

Thanks for the advice guys. I think it's probably the problem. I also found some other site which says too high pickups can definitely mess with the high strings. I tried lowering mine but couldn't get the effect to go away. I think I have some dinky .008 on there (and its old). I probably need to put some real strings on there and see what it does.

thats probally a good idea, 10s probally would be suitable, but if the 8s have been on there a long time you may have to tighten the truss rod just a bit (you probally knew i just thought id throw that it) just pay attention to the height down low you may not have to make an adjustment at all (just throwing that in figured you knew already) but hey welcome to toyz playa, great sorce of info on just about anything for guitars you can think of.

Cool, thanks for the advice. I'll let you know how it works out.

Alright! that was it guys. I got a .010 on there and backed the pickup down a little - no more wierd vibrato. Thanks a million.