Pickups act like antennae to convert magnetic energy produced by vibrating metal strings into an electronic signal that can be amplified – this process creates the sound you hear when playing your guitar.
Humbucking guitar pickups eliminate hum by employing two coils that are wired in opposite directions to cancel out any unwanted noise, eliminating it completely. Organic Pickups’ You series will fit any guitar with routed for humbuckers and come equipped with a baseplate + module for simple tone changes.
Single Coil
As its name implies, single coil guitar pickups feature one magnet or polepiece. This attracts and repels copper wire windings which convert string vibrations into electrical signals which are amplified to give your tone. Different magnetic materials, number of polepieces and amounts of windings all play an integral part in this tone-generating process; there are various designs with differing voices and sounds available (for instance the DeArmond EC-1 is known for its crisp yet twangy sound while Gibson PAF pickups offer full-bodied organic sounds with vintage tones).
One key aspect that influences the tone of single coil guitar pickups is their hum. This occurs due to their pickup picking up electromagnetic interference (EMI). EMI fields are created when electricity interacts with electronic equipment like your guitar amplifier and pedal effects pedals, with coils of guitar pickups picking up this interference and creating an audible 60-cycle hum that becomes audible with higher gain settings.
There are solutions available, and most pickup manufacturers provide various solutions depending on how you intend to use your guitar. Some feature push-pull switches that enable users to disable humbucker mode while others offer multiple wiring configuration options for your instrument.
Magnetic materials play an integral part in shaping the sound of single coil pickups. Alnico III can often be found in vintage-voiced guitars, capturing full vibrations of your strings for a warm and rich tone. Alnico V tends to be seen more commonly with pickups used for heavier genres of music due to its higher output that offers an immediate surge of signal for crushing distortion.
If you’re planning to replace the stock pickups on your guitar, take care when dismantling it. Take your time, take pictures as needed and consider taking notes along the way to help remember how everything fits back together afterwards. It also pays to educate yourself about its construction so that informed decisions can be made regarding which components need replacing and why.
Humbucker
Humbucker pickups are one of the most sought-after types of guitar pickups, featuring two coils wired out of phase with each other to cancel out background noise and interference caused by single coil pickups. Humbuckers also help reduce muddiness while improving string articulation clarity – perfect for higher gain styles such as metal, heavy rock and punk music.
There is an array of humbucker pickups on the market today, each offering their own distinct tone and feel. While some might be warm and thick, others can be more aggressive or sharper in tone. Humbuckers are ideal for those seeking a powerful sound without as much noise and muddiness than single coil pickups can provide.
A humbucker guitar pickup consists of two copper wire coils wrapped together and secured to a baseplate, before they’re connected via copper cables to each other and to an iron magnet, which serves to keep everything together and shape sound output before leaving the pickup. A baseplate serves two purposes – it keeps all components together while also serving as a way to secure it onto your instrument.
There has long been some dispute regarding who first invented humbucker guitar pickups, although early designs can be traced to Gibson’s Seth Lover who designed the PAF pickup in the 1950s and Gretsch’s Raymond Butts who designed Filter’Tron around that same time. Both designs made an enormous impactful statement about electric guitar music at that time; without their impactful designs we may never have known what we know today as popular music!
Humbucker pickups provide another advantage by being better at dealing with high-gain distortion. This is due to their two coils working together to produce a stronger magnetic field that responds faster to string vibrations than single-coil pickups, producing increased sustain.
Passive humbuckers produce full sound that can either be warm or edgy depending on the magnet type and method of winding, often described as having vast dynamic sound capability and rich tones that let your guitar resonate through. Active humbuckers offer higher output levels with potentially hotter pickups from companies like EMG and Seymour Duncan providing ready-to-plug-and-play pickup solutions for guitars.
Dual Coil
Dual coil pickups use two coils of wire encased around magnets for their design. As each string is plucked, magnetic fields produced by these coils interact and cancel out each other to produce fuller and smoother tones than single-coil pickups do.
Magnet type (ferrite or Alnico), its size and configuration, as well as how the bobbins are constructed and how many turns of wire are wound around them all contribute to how a guitar pickup sounds. Other factors that impact its sound include whether or not it is passive or active operation as well as electronics used to shape and enhance signal before leaving the instrument.
Magnets in dual-coil guitar pickups are typically mounted to a bobbin with flat parts at both ends for wrapping multiple thousands of turns of hair-thin copper wire around them, then “potted” with beeswax or other sealants to reduce microphonic interference and give their sound its distinctive quality.
Early electric guitar models from Gibson featured double-coil pickups known as P90 or Patent Applied For pickups that provided warm, rich tones. But this design quickly gave way to another design featuring twin coils offering higher output with reduced noise; quickly becoming known as the humbucker pickup and quickly becoming the standard on most Gibson electric guitar models.
Dual-coil pickups can be reconfigured so that one coil is turned off, providing you with a single-coil sound with reduced output and smoother tone. To accomplish this, a push-pull switch built into the volume control or special custom wiring may be utilized.
Some guitarists appreciate having both single-coil and humbucker tones available to them on their guitar, typically accomplished by installing either one humbucker in the bridge position and one or more single coil pickups in either middle or neck positions, or combining multiple pairs of humbuckers in both positions with a single-coil in between for ultimate tone versatility.
Active
While debate over passive or active guitar pickups continues, one thing is for certain: each type has its own distinct sound. Many factors contribute to this sound; among them are magnet/size and configuration, coil windings per winding cycle, how coil is wrapped around bobbins, wire thickness or thickness, volume control setting (with passive pickups this affects specific frequencies only), while with active pickups the tone control affects all frequencies equally whereas volume knob cuts off specific frequencies and results in overall reduction of output; tone controls affect all frequencies simultaneously while volume knob adjustments for single coil and humbucker pickups compared with active pickups which affect all frequencies simultaneously across their frequency spectrum whereas volume control affects all frequencies simultaneously for both types.
Another distinct difference between passive and active pickups is their distinct power requirements; active models require additional power sources in the form of batteries to function. Most guitars with active pickups contain battery holders for easy identification if one exists on their body – however if that battery dies prematurely it means your pickup won’t function any longer and may no longer provide much use or value.
Active pickups typically have lower impedance than passives, making them better equipped to deal with long cable runs and prevent signal loading that causes treble to fade over long distances, as well as volume roll – when tone pot darkening occurs when volume decreases.
Many believe active pickups can only be used for metal distortion; this is not entirely accurate. Depending on your manufacturer, certain models can offer both clean tones as well as more pronounced overdrive and sustain. Bypassing preamp can give even more expressive overdrive capabilities.
Active pickups tend to be quieter than their passive counterparts, making them ideal for recording as they don’t produce as much noise. Active humbuckers from companies like EMG and Seymour Duncan often come highly endorsed by musicians like Dave Gilmour and Mark Knopfler; another great example is EMG’s active Telecaster pickup which offers more dynamic response than passive ones.