GuitarMonky55
11-05-2003, 05:27 PM
Ok everyone im a gear-head so this is the first of my soon to be series of gear tuts. Here I will explain pickups, humbuckers, active vs passive, and why epiphone pickups sound so crappy! This is partially a post that I made a month or so back explaining humbucking pickups to a poor misguided soul, but I built on it.
First for the basics
when you pick a string, it causes the string to vibrate very fast back and forth between the nut and the saddle. Generally, on an acoustic instrument, this vibration is carried through the bridge and vibrates the soundboard of the instrument, which then causes the sound to reverberate in the body and sound as the note you hear. When playing an electric guitar, which is generally made of a solid-body, there is no way for such amplification to take place, so pickups are used. A pickup consists of 6 polepieces, which are cylindrical metal rods, sometimes screws, one under each string. These are then wrapped tightly with one continuous winding of a very fine wire, usually about 6000 times, but they can be wound more, which causes the electrical signal to be stronger. the polepieces are situated over a magnet, usually of alnico or ceramic material, which then magnetizes the polepieces.
when the string vibrates, being made of nickel, it disturbs the small magnetic field above the polepieces. as the magnetic field is pushed out from the polepieces and into the string winding, it creates tiny electrical charges and sends them throughout the wire, and then onward out the jack socket of the guitar and to the amp, where they are magnified(amplified) by the amp and made audible.
thats the basic single coil pickup
one major limitation of single coil pickups is that they also can detect and carry electromagnetic interference from nearby things, which causes 60-cycle hum. basically, exposure to neon lights, radios, tvs, power lines, badly grounded electrical outlets, computer monitors, electrical appliances, etc...each of these things gives off bits of electromagnetic signals as they operate, which are picked up by the pickups and come through the amp as hum.
think about the name humbucker. it literally bucks the hum. a humbucker is made of 2 single coil pickups which are situated over one magnet and are wired together, so that they act as one pickup. but one of the pickups is wound in a reverse direction from the other, causing electromagnetic inteference to be cancelled out. in addition to greatly reducing background noise, humbucking pickups create a warmer, deeper tone that also has higher output, making a duller, but heavier sound.
generally, your heaviest bands (metallica, ozzy, even bands like staind)that use tons of distortion use humbuckers. single coils tend to have a thinner more cutting sound that is more suitable for styles not requiring such power.
Now for tonal differences;
Listen to sweet home alabama, and take notice of the twanginess of the introduction. Its very sparkly and snappy, and thin. This is the basic sound of a single coil pickup. When overdriven they take on a sound similar to jimi hendrix’s tone. The main reason for this sound is the way the pickups magnetic field is concentrated under the string, in a narrow but focused row that mostly picks up the trebly aspects of the string’s vibration.
Humbuckers sit in a wider area underneath the strings, therefore taking in more of the variants of tonal qualities of the string. Think of the way a strat sounds when you select the bridge position pickup only, then when you select middle and bridge at the same time. The same effect is achieved tonally by the humbucker, in a way. Humbucking pickups also achieve the stereotypical rock tone to the tee.
There are many small bits and pieces of the pickups that can be changed in order to achieve different tone.
For example, pickups which are wound more times give a higher output, and therefore go into overdriven or distorted states more easily and are better suited to rock music.
Pickups with good wax potting jobs tend to be quiter and duller sounding.
Larger polepieces can increase the output and strength of the signal coming from the strings.
Active vs Passive
For anyone who knows about EMG pickups, the first name that comes to mind is either Zakk Wylde or Kirk Hammett. Both use emg 81 and 85 sets in their guitars. Does this mean that active pickups are strictly banger pickups? No.
Passive electronics(normal pickups) feature nothing between the pickup and the output jack that shapes the tone in any way, any inteference that comes into play before the amplifier is just dealt with by whatever means one chooses to use, such as a noise supressor pedal etc…
Active electronics have little electronic circuits which not only shape the tone, but also purge the signal of any impurities such as the buzz that you get from standing next to a computer monitor. These electronics are built inside of the pickup, but do require outside power. Usually a 9 volt battery case is suspended inside of the electronics compartment to power the circuit, and needs to be replaced about once a year.
The one downside to active electronics is that they require tone and volume pots of different resistance because of the way they treat the audio signal. So if you want to put some active pickups into your guitar, plan on gutting all of the electronics including the output jack and selector switch.
Finally, as promised, I will explain why epiphone pickups suck terrible as they do. 3 reasons:
1)they are overly wax potted. Wax potting is a wax coat that goes over the coils of a pickup to eliminate certain kinds of interference. Down at the epi plant they basically throw em in a big tank and yank em out and slap them in a guitar. It dampens a lot of the signal. You can verify this by taking a pickup(especially one with a cover) out of an epi guitar and turning it over. The stuff is everywhere, theres way too much and its way too messy
2)the coil windings are done sloppily and the pickups are underwound. ‘nuff said.
3)they use cheap, weak ceramic magnets. Ceramics generally arent the greatest in the first place, but when you get weak ones its just a sticky mess.
So there you have it. If theres any more pickup info you would like to see here just send me a private message and ill add it in.
First for the basics
when you pick a string, it causes the string to vibrate very fast back and forth between the nut and the saddle. Generally, on an acoustic instrument, this vibration is carried through the bridge and vibrates the soundboard of the instrument, which then causes the sound to reverberate in the body and sound as the note you hear. When playing an electric guitar, which is generally made of a solid-body, there is no way for such amplification to take place, so pickups are used. A pickup consists of 6 polepieces, which are cylindrical metal rods, sometimes screws, one under each string. These are then wrapped tightly with one continuous winding of a very fine wire, usually about 6000 times, but they can be wound more, which causes the electrical signal to be stronger. the polepieces are situated over a magnet, usually of alnico or ceramic material, which then magnetizes the polepieces.
when the string vibrates, being made of nickel, it disturbs the small magnetic field above the polepieces. as the magnetic field is pushed out from the polepieces and into the string winding, it creates tiny electrical charges and sends them throughout the wire, and then onward out the jack socket of the guitar and to the amp, where they are magnified(amplified) by the amp and made audible.
thats the basic single coil pickup
one major limitation of single coil pickups is that they also can detect and carry electromagnetic interference from nearby things, which causes 60-cycle hum. basically, exposure to neon lights, radios, tvs, power lines, badly grounded electrical outlets, computer monitors, electrical appliances, etc...each of these things gives off bits of electromagnetic signals as they operate, which are picked up by the pickups and come through the amp as hum.
think about the name humbucker. it literally bucks the hum. a humbucker is made of 2 single coil pickups which are situated over one magnet and are wired together, so that they act as one pickup. but one of the pickups is wound in a reverse direction from the other, causing electromagnetic inteference to be cancelled out. in addition to greatly reducing background noise, humbucking pickups create a warmer, deeper tone that also has higher output, making a duller, but heavier sound.
generally, your heaviest bands (metallica, ozzy, even bands like staind)that use tons of distortion use humbuckers. single coils tend to have a thinner more cutting sound that is more suitable for styles not requiring such power.
Now for tonal differences;
Listen to sweet home alabama, and take notice of the twanginess of the introduction. Its very sparkly and snappy, and thin. This is the basic sound of a single coil pickup. When overdriven they take on a sound similar to jimi hendrix’s tone. The main reason for this sound is the way the pickups magnetic field is concentrated under the string, in a narrow but focused row that mostly picks up the trebly aspects of the string’s vibration.
Humbuckers sit in a wider area underneath the strings, therefore taking in more of the variants of tonal qualities of the string. Think of the way a strat sounds when you select the bridge position pickup only, then when you select middle and bridge at the same time. The same effect is achieved tonally by the humbucker, in a way. Humbucking pickups also achieve the stereotypical rock tone to the tee.
There are many small bits and pieces of the pickups that can be changed in order to achieve different tone.
For example, pickups which are wound more times give a higher output, and therefore go into overdriven or distorted states more easily and are better suited to rock music.
Pickups with good wax potting jobs tend to be quiter and duller sounding.
Larger polepieces can increase the output and strength of the signal coming from the strings.
Active vs Passive
For anyone who knows about EMG pickups, the first name that comes to mind is either Zakk Wylde or Kirk Hammett. Both use emg 81 and 85 sets in their guitars. Does this mean that active pickups are strictly banger pickups? No.
Passive electronics(normal pickups) feature nothing between the pickup and the output jack that shapes the tone in any way, any inteference that comes into play before the amplifier is just dealt with by whatever means one chooses to use, such as a noise supressor pedal etc…
Active electronics have little electronic circuits which not only shape the tone, but also purge the signal of any impurities such as the buzz that you get from standing next to a computer monitor. These electronics are built inside of the pickup, but do require outside power. Usually a 9 volt battery case is suspended inside of the electronics compartment to power the circuit, and needs to be replaced about once a year.
The one downside to active electronics is that they require tone and volume pots of different resistance because of the way they treat the audio signal. So if you want to put some active pickups into your guitar, plan on gutting all of the electronics including the output jack and selector switch.
Finally, as promised, I will explain why epiphone pickups suck terrible as they do. 3 reasons:
1)they are overly wax potted. Wax potting is a wax coat that goes over the coils of a pickup to eliminate certain kinds of interference. Down at the epi plant they basically throw em in a big tank and yank em out and slap them in a guitar. It dampens a lot of the signal. You can verify this by taking a pickup(especially one with a cover) out of an epi guitar and turning it over. The stuff is everywhere, theres way too much and its way too messy
2)the coil windings are done sloppily and the pickups are underwound. ‘nuff said.
3)they use cheap, weak ceramic magnets. Ceramics generally arent the greatest in the first place, but when you get weak ones its just a sticky mess.
So there you have it. If theres any more pickup info you would like to see here just send me a private message and ill add it in.