Take a second and give me a good vote when you get done reading. I'd like to move up in the review pecking order and that's the only way.

There is a seemingly endless variety of pickups out there for electric guitars. You can spend some major money on these things. So what are you paying for exactly..?? And, what makes them work..? How did they get those crazy names..?

1) The name. With anything these days, the name makes a big difference. After all, somebody has to pay for the marketing campaign and the fancy packaging. Guess who pays..??

2) The output. Traditionally, the higher the output, the higher the price. Why is that..?? I don't know. There are a couple of ways it's done.... Some high-output pickups get to be high output by using stronger than normal magnets. I never liked this concept. Why..?? The stronger the magnet, the less sustain you'll have. You see, a strong magnet will actually attract the strings, thus causing the string vibration, which is what the pick up picks up, to be damped or slowed down by the magnet. If you don't want much sustain, then that's OK. If you like sustain, and who does not, then it's not a good thing. Another method, which may be a bit more common, is adding more turns of the copper wire used in pickup manufacturing which will, essentially, increase the voltage generated by string vibration. Downside..?? Yes...of course...the more wire, the more likely chance of hum, since this also effects the resistance and impedance. This is not an electrical class, so if you want to learn about  resistance and impedance, GOOGLE. 

3) Humbucker or Single Coil..?  ...One issue that has always been with us as it relates to a single coil pickup, is hum. Depending on the actual AC (wall outlet) frequency, as well as the actual signal from your strings, you are going to get some hum. You are going to get more the hotter the output is. The simple explaination for this is the pickup is acting as a transformer. Not Optimus Prime. A simple transformer. Thus, Grasshopper, the lower the output of a single coil, the cleaner it's going to be. That's without adding fancy, and equally expensive measures to counteract the hum.  But, Uncle Willie, this flies in the face of what we thought was conventional thinking.  Yes, it does.  So sorry. If you want the cleanest, least cost way to get that single coil Bright and Crisp tone, use low output pickups. Period. Don't get hung up on the hype, folks. Go back in time to the Guitar Gods of the past once again and take a lesson. One final note, on a 3 single coil guitar, in many cases, the middle unit is reverse wound, so when you switch to the neck and middle pickup, or the bridge and middle pickup, you are mimicing a Humbucker...which brings me to

the humbucker....Way back in the stone age of the 1950's..(yes, I was around back then) ..two guys, pretty much, at the same time, (although they did work for different companies, hint..both companies start with a G)  tried to figure out a way to overcome the hum. Seth Lover and Ray Butts. Lover and Butts...who could ask for anything more.  These dudes evolved the guitar massively, yet you probably did not even know their names..right..?? Shame, shame. A regular old Humbucker uses two coils, instead of one (as in single coil) Both coils generate a signal from the string. The coils work in series. The difference is, the coils are reversed. In technical terms, this means reversed polarity and reverse wound. Don't worry about the technical aspect. This concept is also exactly why a Humbucker is Warm and Fat sounding. Warm and Fat, as opposed to Bright and Crisp. The simple concept is hum and interference is greatly reduced due to a concept called rejection. Not the rejection your former spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend threw at you. In a nutshell, these two coils greatly cancel out the hum. Thus...Hum Bucker. Since the 1950's was a big era for cowboy movies, BUCK THE HUM. You could probably substitute a letter here or there to put it into more modern terms. Get your head out of the sewer.

An interesting side note on Humbuckers...although the traditional unit is a side by side coil design, we do now have "stacked Humbuckers", where the coils are mounted on top of each other, thus preserving the look and size of the traditional single coil.

It all boils down to this...lower output = cleaner pickup sound. Single Coil = Bright and Crisp.  Humbucker = Warm and Fat.

No matter how many flavors and how much it cost, it still comes down to the same simple  concepts that have been with us since the invention of an electric guitar.  I'm going to save my thoughts on Rail humbuckers, Coil splits, Coil taps, and some other esoteric designs for a future article.

So, until next time, keep practicing, because that where the REAL difference in guitars takes place. It's all in your fingers.  Uncle Willie

Take a second and give me a good vote when you get done reading. I'd like to move up in the review pecking order and that's the only way.