Tailpiece heights? Low, medium or high?

Hydra19

Just got an SG and am trying to set it up but noticing some difference in sound and playability and can't make up my mind what I prefer. It's an SG with a fairly shallow neck so the tailpiece can be screwed all the way down and the strings won't touch the back of the bridge.

Setup as low as it goes: more string tension, brighter sound, focused mostly in the high-mids and trebles. Good sustain
Raised up 2 whole turns: less spring tension, sound is growlier and deeper, less focus on the highs, the acoustic sound has lowered, it's not as loud but plugged in I think I notice more sustain due to resonance. The tailpiece raised allows more natural resonance in the metal parts, as if it was getting squeezed out before. Sounds more like a Les Paul now, whereas before it was more punchy like an SG should be. Went back a few times last night and settled on the full turns up for now.

What are your preferences? I tried to look up setups from pros, all I know is slash raises his tailpiece but can't find much info on the rest, and screwing the tailpiece as low as it will go without the strings touching the back doesn't apply in my case, they won't touch them. I assume having a Lyre Maestro Tremolo will raise the strings up a bit too?

I have 2 other Les Pauls, one has a pretty severe neck angle, the bridge really needs to be raised a lot to have low action. I raised the tailpiece so the strings don't touch and noticed a fuller sound, left it like that. 
On my other, I have a Bigsby and the angle is very severe, the strings touch the back of the bridge, and not just lightly but I can't change the bigsby angle so that has to stay like that. The guitar sounds and plays great.

So I have 3 guitars with 3 different settings? Anyone here not screw it all the way down?

gringopig

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Hydra19

gringopig said:

I raised the tailpiece on my '58 and '59 custom shop LPs as I didn't want the strings touching the back of the abr-1 when I raised the action. I don't like low action and need it sufficiently high to bend under the string adjacent.
I didn't notice any tone change at all and I am very picky about that sort of thing.

I did have an SG with a Maestro Lyre vibrola and the neck angle was too shallow and the vibrola didn't have the proper bend in the mounting metalwork so the string angle was poor and sustain wasn't good. I changed out the vibrola for a Crazyparts one which sort of fixed it but it soon got traded.

I do like to look of the Vibrola so thought I would add that but heard about these shallow angles and that Crazy Parts does it right, might go that route but am not sure if I wanna do that to my TOM SG

ICBM

I always like them as low as possible, preferably tight down if the bridge is low enough to allow it. I prefer the more acoustic-guitar-like resonance and powerful sound. In fact, I would not normally consider buying a Gibson where that isn't possible.

If you have a Bigsby on a guitar with a bridge that's too high to allow the strings to clear the back of the bridge, that will almost certainly cause tuning problems as well as excessive force on the bridge when you use the Bigsby - you need one of these:

https://bricksbiggsfix.com

Hydra19

ICBM said:

I always like them as low as possible, preferably tight down if the bridge is low enough to allow it. I prefer the more acoustic-guitar-like resonance and powerful sound. In fact, I would not normally consider buying a Gibson where that isn't possible.

If you have a Bigsby on a guitar with a bridge that's too high to allow the strings to clear the back of the bridge, that will almost certainly cause tuning problems as well as excessive force on the bridge when you use the Bigsby - you need one of these:

https://bricksbiggsfix.com

Thanks, I do need that, and I have been contemplating just taking off the bigsby. When it arrived without the bigsby the bridge was already caving in, I have a pretty good one that hasn't caved in in 2 years with this extreme pressure on the bridge. 

It stays in tune fine and sounds great, but there is just no way for the strings to clear the bridge as the bigsby bar is pretty close. The reason I think it stays in tune fine is that the bigsby is not so responsive, I'm not affecting the string very much when I even go crazy on the bar so there is just not much movement there. I'm sure it would be better if there was, so I will probably have to get this.

abw1989

I top wrap my strings over the tailpiece so always have them right down on the studs so that they clear the bridge.

Grumpyrocker

My Les Paul Traditional has quite a neck angle that makes screwing the tailpiece all the way down a non-started. However I installed a set of "tone lock" spacers - https://www.faberguitar.com/index.php?k=88&lang=eng