Guitar pickups play an integral role in the tone of an electric guitar, producing electrical impulses which an amplifier then converts to audio signals. That is why most electric guitars feature multiple pickups.
Example: A guitar equipped with two humbuckers in both its bridge and neck positions offers great versatility when performing high gain power chords or riffs, as these pickups can usually be split for single coil tones as well.
Body & Neck
Guitars may feature one to three pickups. The number of pickups will have an effect on its timbre and tone; all pickups have different tonal characteristics across the spectrum. Pickup placement in relation to strings often makes an impactful statement: pickups closer to the bridge tend to produce louder, brighter tones while ones nearer the neck tend to produce lower, warmer tones that lack that characteristic twanginess.
The number of pickups also influences guitar sustain. A higher number can result in shorter sustain, while lower pickup counts often have longer. This effect occurs because higher output pickups contain more harmonics. When it comes to picking out guitar pickups for your guitar, their selection depends largely on its genre and sound preferences – there are humbuckers, single coils, P90s and many others available, each offering unique magnet sizes and polepiece configurations; one without dual polepieces would produce a sound that is more vintage-sounding than its counterpart with two polepieces.
Pickup material has an immense effect on sound. Alnico 2 pickups tend to produce vintage tones while Alnico 5 and Alnico 8 models tend to create heavier distortion effects. Guitar virtuosos like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai often utilize DiMarzio guitar pickups due to their versatile nature across a range of musical genres.
Bolt-on neck guitars use bolts to secure their pickups to the body of the instrument; string-through-body (STL) guitars feature strings passing through an opening in their bodies and connecting with their nuts; these instruments often offer faster response, greater durability, and are often preferred due to their unique sound qualities; however, their sustain is inferior compared to other guitar types.
There are some guitars with just one pickup, such as the PRS SE One Korina and Gibson Les Paul Junior. Although their design may not provide as many sounds options, these instruments still can produce unique tones.
Bridge
Your guitar bridge contains one or more pickups to convert electrical signals to audible sound. Multiple pickups enable greater versatility and tone shaping for recording environments.
Though many guitarists choose to keep their guitars with only a single pickup, having multiple can provide greater tone control options – especially with humbucking pickups which can produce different tones depending on where and how they’re wired.
Guitar pickups utilize magnetic polepieces on either side of each string. These magnets determine what frequencies the pickup generates; single-polepiece pickups (common in bass guitars) feature one magnet per string while dual-polepiece models (common on Fender Jazz and Precision basses) usually feature three: one in the middle, and two either side.
Humbucking pickups utilize two magnets of opposite polarity to cancel out noise from electrical devices and produce double the output than when wired parallel. This gives them their distinctive sound that many players find desirable.
One popular method for wiring guitar pickups is series wiring, in which individual coils are wired together so their signals do not cross before reaching the output. This wiring scheme is utilized on most electric guitars available at Sweetwater as it provides greater control and flexibility than parallel wiring does.
However, one downside of using a humbucking pickup in this fashion is that it may sound less dynamic and dead-sounding compared to wiring them parallel. This is due to each coil receiving reduced signal strength which leads to decreased high-frequency response overall.
Electronics
A guitar pickup acts like a microphone that captures vibrations from your strings and converts them to electrical signals that can then be amplified and altered into whatever tone you desire. There are different shapes and sizes of pickups on the market today, each offering their own set of specifications that give you an idea of their brightness or darkness when played together with amps or pedals.
Pickups can be further distinguished based on how they function, whether active (requiring batteries) or passive ( not) and by the type of magnet they utilize. DC resistance of coil is another useful metric as it gives an idea of its output; though this doesn’t reveal much information regarding distortion caused by hard driving.
Electric guitar pickups can generally be divided into two broad categories: single-coil and humbucking. Single-coil pickups feature six pole pieces that act as magnets and produce an AC signal whenever the string vibrates; this intensity changes according to how quickly or slowly the string travels over these pole pieces, producing musical notes as the magnet oscillates back and forth over them.
Single-coil pickups have the disadvantage of picking up mains hum (radio frequency electromagnetic interference from power cables, fluorescent light ballasts and video monitors or televisions) along with musical signals. A solution exists: using a special kind of single-coil pickup known as a humbucking pickup that utilizes two coils with opposing magnetic fields to cancel out mains hum and produce better sound quality.
Humbucking pickups typically offer higher output than single-coil ones and can further be improved through special materials (ceramic is often chosen) or increased windings of their coil. Unfortunately, however, high output pickups may overload amplifiers by producing too much extra gain – even at relatively low volumes (like playing soft rhythm parts without much distortion).
Some guitars contain three pickups positioned in the front, center, and neck positions for use with different sounds and selector switches to let users choose which pickup will be active at any given moment (coil splitting). Furthermore, this arrangement allows for multiple tones from within one guitar using multiple pickup combinations combined together (or coil splitting).
Finish
Guitar pickups are an integral component in creating the tones of an electric guitar, translating string vibrations to an electrical signal which feeds an amp and speaker system to generate sound. There are various styles and brands of pickups designed to achieve specific sounds; most guitarists opt for single-coil pickups which deliver excellent clarity when translating string sound but are susceptible to hum. Humbuckers offer more power while giving more full and warm tones while cancelling out hum.
A pickup’s sound depends upon a variety of factors: pole pieces and their spacing, diameter of magnet, coating on magnet, type and thickness of copper wire used to wind bobbin and how many turns have been wound around it; output amount; higher-output pickups often offer greater gain and louder sounds.
Pickups are generally placed beneath the strings in the body of a guitar and installed within its body, where they can be combined to produce various tones and tones. Guitars equipped with three or more pickups often include a selector that allows users to choose which of them generate particular tones – those nearer the bridge may produce a bright sound with lots of treble while those at the neck usually provide a warmer tone.
There are other specialized guitar pickups that can be combined to produce different sounds, like the stacked humbucker. This unique pickup was created to eliminate hum from standard humbuckers by connecting their opposing coils together for increased power and a thicker, warmer tone.
Though some guitarists might favor one type of pickup over another, most players agree there are many options available when it comes to finding the ideal electric guitar pickups. A good place to begin your search would be by studying which types are used by guitarists you admire and trying out some for sound and feel purposes; over time you are sure to discover your ideal set-up!