Originally posted by Axl_Rose
Generally, and Im asking because my experiments failed, do you,

A) Get more sustain if you pickups are closer to the strings?

No way! The magnets in the pickups will pull on the strings, damping the vibration, which KILLS the sustain! It will also affect the intonation, making it sound out of tune.

Originally posted by Axl_Rose
B) Get more feedback if the pickups are close to the strings?

No. Feedback happens when the sound from the speaker causes the strings to vibrate, [u]feed[/u]ing the signal [u]back[/u] into the amp.

Originally posted by Axl_Rose
C) Get more distortion if the pickups are closer to the strings?

Maybe. But that's the wrong way to get distortion. The good kind of distortion comes from saturating the tubes in the preamp, the power amp, or both. You control that with the amp settings.