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66-482: As a successor model, SG 100 was released in the late-1971 (with a large maple body, triangular pickguard, flat metal control plate, a black plastic-molded single-coil pickup with a flat metal-ring, and tune-o-matic installed through a baseplate/tailpiece), then SG I replaced it in the late-1972 (with a humbucker and stoptail bridge ), but discontinued in 1974. The late 1960s version was re-issued by Gibson between 1999 and 2001. Between 2011 and 2015 Gibson rereleased

132-417: A piezoelectric pickup. A typical magnetic pickup is a transducer (specifically a variable reluctance sensor ) that consists of one or more permanent magnets (usually alnico or ferrite ) wrapped with a coil of several thousand turns of fine enameled copper wire. The magnet creates a magnetic field which is focused by the pickup's pole piece or pieces. The permanent magnet in the pickup magnetizes

198-500: A Junior which more closely resembled its early 1960s incarnation. This article relating to electric guitars is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Humbucker A humbucker , humbucking pickup , or double coil , is a guitar pickup that uses two wire coils to cancel out noisy interference from coil pickups . Humbucking coils are also used in dynamic microphones to cancel electromagnetic hum. Humbuckers are one of two main types of guitar pickups. The other

264-428: A constant hum or buzz. This is most noticeable when using distortion , fuzz, compressors , or other effects which, by adding gain to low-level signals, reduce the signal-to-noise ratio and therefore amplify the unwanted interference relative to the signal from the strings. Humbuckers work by pairing a coil that has the north poles of its magnets oriented "up" (toward the strings) with another coil alongside it with

330-444: A design restriction that limits the dynamic range of the circuit. The active circuitry may contain audio filters, which reduce the dynamic range and mildly distort certain ranges. High-output active pickup systems also have an effect on an amplifier's input circuit. Rickenbacker was the first manufacturer to market stereo instruments (guitars and basses). Their proprietary "Ric-O-Sound" circuitry has two separate output jacks, allowing

396-401: A fairly recent development that work by sensing the interruption of a light beam by a vibrating string. The light source is usually an LED, and the detector is a photodiode or phototransistor . These pickups are completely resistant to magnetic or electric interference and also have a very broad and flat frequency response, unlike magnetic pickups. Optical pickup guitars were first shown at

462-614: A few particular models use include: The piezoelectric pickup contains a piezo crystal, which converts the vibrations directly to a changing voltage. Many semi-acoustic and acoustic guitars , and some electric guitars and basses, have been fitted with piezoelectric pickups instead of, or in addition to, magnetic pickups. These have a very different sound, and also have the advantage of not picking up any other magnetic fields, such as mains hum and feedback from monitoring loops. In hybrid guitars , this system allows switching between magnetic pickup and piezo sounds, or simultaneously blending

528-450: A form factor that can be retrofit in place of a single coil. Many different kinds of "mini-humbuckers" are available from numerous manufacturers, and they produce a wide range of different tones. Not to be confused with the full size rail design. The origins of the hot rail/blade design are contested, with Joe Barden being quoted in Jan 1989 Guitar World magazine as claiming to having invented

594-567: A high input impedance , typically a megohm or more, and a low-impedance load increases attenuation of higher frequencies. Typical maximum frequency of a single-coil pickup is around 5 kHz, with the highest note on a typical guitar fretboard having a fundamental frequency of 1.17 kHz. Single-coil pickups act like a directional antenna and are prone to pick up mains hum —nuisance alternating current electromagnetic interference from electrical power cables, power transformers, fluorescent light ballasts, video monitors or televisions—along with

660-471: A humbucker, and the patent USRE20070 describes the noise cancellation and current summation principles of such a design. This "Electric Translating Device" employed the solenoid windings of the pickup to magnetize the steel strings by means of switching on a short D.C. charge before switching over to amplification. In 1938, A.F. Knoblaugh invented a pickup for stringed instruments involving two stacked coils described in U.S. patent 2,119,584 . This pickup

726-496: A humbucking pattern beginning in late 1953 but dropped the design in 1954 due to the perceived distorted sound, which had stronger mid-range presence. The Gibson Les Paul was the first guitar to use humbuckers in large-scale production. Over the following decades, variants of practically every type of electric guitar have also been equipped with humbuckers, even types which are traditionally associated with single-coil pickups, like Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters . In particular,

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792-421: A magnet, and are the most common type used. They can generate electric potential without need for external power, though their output is relatively low, and the harmonic content of output depends greatly on the winding. "Active" pickups incorporate electronic circuitry to modify the signal. Active circuits are able to filter, attenuate or boost the signal from the pickup. The main disadvantage of an active system

858-406: A patch cable. The pickup is most often mounted on the body of the instrument, but can be attached to the bridge , neck or pickguard . The pickups vary in power, and they vary in style. Some pickups can be single coil, in which one coil picks up the sound of all strings, while other pickups can be double coil humbuckers . A special type of humbucker characteristic for Precision type bass guitars

924-542: A similar inductance. Most electric guitars have two or three magnetic pickups. A combination of pickups is called a pickup configuration , usually notated by writing out the pickup types in order from bridge pickup through mid pickup(s) to neck pickup, using “S” for single-coil and “H” for humbucker. Typically the bridge pickup is known as the lead pickup, and the neck pickup is known as the rhythm pickup. Common pickup configurations include: Less frequently found configurations are: Examples of rare configurations that only

990-404: A sound', and are not so neutral. On fine jazz guitars, the parallel wiring produces significantly cleaner sound, as the lowered source impedance drives capacitive cable with lower high frequency attenuation. A side-by-side humbucking pickup senses a wider section of each string than a single-coil pickup. By picking up a larger portion of the vibrating string, more lower harmonics are present in

1056-444: A switch or within the pickup selector) so that only one coil is active. Slightly smaller than a traditional humbucker/double coil form factor. Many guitars feature cavities only for single-coil pickups. Installing full/double-sized humbuckers in this type of guitar requires additional routing of the woodwork, and/or cutting of the pickguard if the instrument has one. Many pickup manufacturers now produce humbucking pickup designs in

1122-439: A very wide frequency range output compared to the magnetic types and can give large amplitude signals from the strings. For this reason, the buffer amplifier is often powered from relatively high voltage rails (about ±9 V) to avoid distortion due to clipping . A less linear preamp (like a single- FET amplifier) might be preferable due to softer clipping characteristics. Such an amplifier starts to distort sooner, which makes

1188-476: A wider range of available sounds. For early pickup devices using the piezoelectric effect, see phonograph . Some pickup products are installed and used similarly to piezoelectric pickups, but use different underlying technology, for instance electret or condenser microphone technology. There are basically four principles used to convert sound into an alternating current, each with their pros and cons: An amplification system with two transducers combines

1254-471: Is amplified using an instrument amplifier to produce musical sounds through a loudspeaker in a speaker enclosure . The signal from a pickup can also be recorded directly. The first electrical string instrument with pickups, the " Frying Pan " slide guitar, was created by George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacker around 1931. Most electric guitars and electric basses use magnetic pickups. Acoustic guitars , upright basses and fiddles often use

1320-460: Is single coil . The "humbucking coil" was invented in 1934 by Electro-Voice , an American professional audio company based in South Bend, Indiana , that Al Kahn and Lou Burroughs incorporated in 1930 for the purpose of manufacturing portable public address equipment, including microphones and loudspeakers . The twin coiled guitar pickup invented by Arnold Lesti in 1935 is arranged as

1386-443: Is a series/parallel switch, which in one position causes the coils to be connected in parallel rather than in series. This retains the humbucker's noise-cancellation properties, and gives a sound closer to that of two single-coil pickups used together. Coil splitting is often wrongly referred to as a "coil tapping". Coil taps are most commonly found on single coil pickups, and involve adding an extra hook-up wire during manufacture of

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1452-424: Is also found in the balanced lines used in audio equipment. By convention, both humbucker coils are wound counterclockwise. The coils can be connected in series or in parallel in order to achieve this hum-cancellation effect, but humbucker pickups tend to be connected in series because that doubles the signal of the strings while keeping the hum reduced. Some types of humbucker pickups can be manually split (with

1518-444: Is called split coil pickup: two coils, each of them picks up different strings, on a 4-string bass, one coil the E and A string, the second coil the D and G string. The pickup is one of the most important aspects to distinguishing an electric guitar's sound. Most guitar models have a distinction in pickups, which act as a new selling point for guitar companies. Pickups have magnetic polepieces, typically one or two for each string, with

1584-426: Is composed of two coils, with each coil wound reverse to the other. Each set of six magnetic poles is also opposite in polarity. Since ambient hum from electrical devices reaches the coils as common-mode noise , it induces an equal voltage in each coil, but 180 degrees out of phase between the two voltages. These effectively cancel each other, while the signal from the guitar string is doubled. When wired in series, as

1650-429: Is magnetically isolated. The inverted signal of this coil only serves to cancel out the hum picked up by the other coil, with the actual string signal remaining unaffected. This is often used on bass guitars , where the type of pickup used has a greater effect on the instrument's overall sound, and the lower range of notes and their fundamental frequencies can match frequencies typically more heavily affected by hum. This

1716-467: Is most common, the overall inductance of the pickup is increased, which lowers its resonance frequency and attenuates the higher frequencies, giving a less trebly tone (i.e., "fatter") than either of the two component single-coil pickups would give alone. An alternative wiring places the coils in buck parallel, which has a more neutral effect on resonant frequency. This pickup wiring is rare, as guitarists have come to expect that humbucking pickups 'have

1782-591: Is no hum canceling effect. Usually, this feature is activated using a miniature toggle switch or a DPDT push-pull switch mounted on a potentiometer . Some guitars (e.g., the Peavey T-60 and the Fender Classic Player Jaguar HH) make use of a variable coil split circuit that allows the guitarist to dial a variable amount of signal from the second coil, from purely single coil to full humbucker and everything in-between. A similar option

1848-420: Is not isolated by a buffer amplifier or a DI unit . The turns of wire in proximity to each other have an equivalent self- capacitance that, when added to any cable capacitance present, resonates with the inductance of the winding. This resonance can accentuate certain frequencies, giving the pickup a characteristic tonal quality. The more turns of wire in the winding, the higher the output voltage but

1914-407: Is often called a "stacked" pickup, because the coils are most often "stacked" vertically, with the coil containing magnets placed closer to the strings. Another design known as the rail humbucker features a single magnetic component spanning across the entire string width of the instrument. These pickups are similar in size to single and double coil pickup, replacing the 6 slugs/magnets per coil. This

1980-408: Is often referred to as a "split coil" pickup, which should not be confused with the possibility of "coil-splitting" a regular humbucker, as discussed above. Both coils see nearly identical extraneous electromagnetic disturbances, and since they are wired in humbucking fashion, can effectively cancel them. However, the majority of the sound signal of any single note will mostly be generated by just one of

2046-422: Is requirement of a battery power source to operate the preamp circuitry. Batteries limit circuit design and functionality, in addition to being inconvenient to the musician. The circuitry may be as simple as a single transistor, or up to several operational amplifiers configured as active filters, active EQ and other sound-shaping features. The op amps used must be of a low-power design to optimize battery life,

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2112-404: Is sometimes expanded into a double sized "quadrail", or double humbucker, effectively combining 4 coils connected together to produce an extremely high-output pickup. The Kent Armstrong "Motherbucker" is an example of such an overpowered pickup. The same type of rails can also be found in a normal-size humbucker. Heavy metal guitarist Dimebag Darrell made heavy use of this type of pickup wired in

2178-482: The Fender Jazz Bass , introduced in 1960, which used a pair of single-coil pickups, one near the bridge and another about halfway between the bridge and the neck, and many Stratocaster style guitars, which often have 3 pickups with the middle one reversed electrically and magnetically. The usual five-way selector switch provides two humbucking settings, using the reversed middle pickup in parallel with either

2244-576: The Lace Sensor pickup, which uses proprietary screened bobbins to reduce hum while preserving single-coil tone. In the early 1980s DiMarzio introduced replacement pickups for Stratocaster and Telecaster guitars. These were of the stacked humbucker design, where the lower pickup coil functions solely to cancel hum. The DiMarzio "Super Distortion" pickup, introduced in 1972, was the first after-market replacement guitar pickup. With its much-increased output compared to humbuckers installed in guitars of

2310-541: The MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) protocol. A hexaphonic pickup and a converter are usually components of a guitar/synthesizer . Such pickups are uncommon (compared to normal ones), and only a few notable models exist, like the piezoelectric pickups on the Moog Guitar . Hexaphonic pickups can be either magnetic or piezoelectric or based on the condensor principle like electronicpickups Optical pickups are

2376-439: The south pole of its magnets oriented up. By connecting the coils together out of phase , the interference is significantly reduced via phase cancellation : the string signals from both coils add up instead of canceling because the magnets are placed in opposite polarity. This dramatically improves the signal-to-noise ratio . The technique has something in common with what electrical engineers call " common-mode rejection ", and

2442-556: The " Superstrat " style of guitar. In any magnetic pickup, a vibrating guitar string, magnetized by a fixed magnet within the pickup, induces an alternating voltage across its coil. However, wire coils also make excellent antennas and are therefore sensitive to electromagnetic interference caused by alternating magnetic fields from mains wiring ( mains hum ) and electrical appliances like transformers, motors, and computer screens , especially older CRT monitors. Guitar pickups reproduce this noise, which can be quite audible, sounding like

2508-506: The 1969 NAMM Convention in Chicago , by Ron Hoag. In 2000, Christopher Willcox, founder of LightWave Systems, unveiled a new beta technology for an optical pickup system using infrared light. In May 2001, LightWave Systems released their second generation pickup, dubbed the "S2." Pickups can be either active or passive . Pickups, apart from optical types, are inherently passive transducers. "Passive" pickups are usually wire-wound around

2574-715: The Highlander iP-2, the Verweij VAMP or the LR Baggs dual source and the D-TAR Multisource. Hexaphonic pickups (also called divided pickups and polyphonic pickups ) have a separate output for each string ( Hexaphonic assumes six strings, as on a guitar). This allows for separate processing and amplification for each string. It also allows a converter to sense the pitch coming from individual string signals for producing note commands, typically according to

2640-439: The bridge feet and the top of the instrument, or, less frequently, wedged under a wing of the bridge. Some pickups are fastened to the top of the instrument with removable putty . Piezoelectric pickups have a very high output impedance and appear as a capacitance in series with a voltage source . They therefore often have an instrument-mounted buffer amplifier fitted to maximize frequency response . The piezo pickup gives

2706-403: The bridge or neck pickup. If the pickups are wired in series instead of parallel, the resulting sound is close to that of a normal humbucker. It is even closer to a humbucker-type sound if the coils are placed closer together. In 1957, Fender introduced a split pickup to its Precision Bass , where one coil is serving the E and A strings, and the other one the D and G strings. This configuration

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2772-423: The bridge position. These tend to have a higher output and bass response than the single coil-sized versions. DiMarzio has designed and sold many such pickups. Some guitars which have humbucking pickups feature "coil splits", which allow the pickups to act as "pseudo-single" coils by either short-circuiting or bypassing one coil. The electrical circuit of the pickup is reduced to that of a true single coil so there

2838-437: The coils, so that output level and tonal qualities are much closer to a regular single-coil pickup. The resulting "P-Style" pickup is usually regarded as the main ingredient of the "P-Bass" sound, and many variants on the design are offered by many manufacturers. The concept was later developed into G&L 's "Z-coil" pickup, which is used for standard guitars such as their Comanche model. In 1985, Lace Music Products introduced

2904-475: The design in late 1983. The US patent for the L-500 attributes the hot rail design to Bill Lawrence. Two flat vertical magnetically conductive blades are placed side by side within half the width of a typical fender strat/telecaster sized single coil. Both "blades/rails" pass under all strings and placed lengthwise, each with its own winding around one rail/blade, and a magnet placed directly under and contacting

2970-440: The distortion less "buzzy" and less audible than a more linear, but less forgiving op-amp . However, at least one study indicates that most people cannot tell the difference between FET and op-amp circuits in blind listening comparisons of electric instrument preamps, which correlates with results of formal studies of other types of audio devices. Sometimes, piezoelectric pickups are used in conjunction with magnetic types to give

3036-407: The final sound because the magnet's pull on the strings (called string capture ) can cause problems with intonation as well as damp the strings and reduce sustain . Other high-output pickups have more turns of wire to increase the voltage generated by the string's movement. However, this also increases the pickup's output resistance and impedance , which can affect high frequencies if the pickup

3102-449: The guitar string above it. This causes the string to generate a magnetic field which is in alignment with that of the permanent magnet. When the string is plucked, the magnetic field around it moves up and down with the string. This moving magnetic field induces a voltage in the coil of the pickup as described by Faraday's law of induction . Output voltage depends on the instrument and playing style and which string(s) are played and where on

3168-407: The lower this resonance frequency . The arrangement of parasitic resistances and capacitances in the guitar, cable, and amplifier input, combined with the inductive source impedance inherent in this type of transducer forms a resistively-damped second-order low-pass filter , producing a non-linearity effect not found in piezoelectric or optical transducers. Pickups are usually designed to feed

3234-518: The musical signal. Mains hum consists of a fundamental signal at a nominal 50 or 60 Hz, depending on local current frequency, and usually some harmonic content. To overcome this, the humbucking pickup was invented by Joseph Raymond "Ray" Butts (for Gretsch ), while Seth Lover also worked on one for Gibson . Who developed it first is a matter of some debate, but Butts was awarded the first patent ( U.S. patent 2,892,371 ) and Lover came next ( U.S. patent 2,896,491 ). A humbucking pickup

3300-464: The musician to send each pickup to its own audio chain (effects device, amplifier, mix console input). Teisco produced a guitar with a stereo option. Teisco divided the two sections in the upper three strings and the lower three strings for each individual output. The Gittler guitar was a limited production guitar with six pickups, one for each string. Gibson created the HD.6X Pro guitar that captures

3366-442: The notable exceptions of rail and lipstick tube pickups. Single polepieces are approximately centered on each string whereas dual polepieces such as the standard pickups on the Fender Jazz Bass and Precision Bass sit either side of each string. On most guitars, the strings are not fully parallel: they converge at the nut and diverge at the bridge. Thus, bridge, neck and middle pickups usually have different polepiece spacings on

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3432-420: The opposite ends of the core, rather than the now more common top-bottom orientation. To overcome the hum problem for guitars, a humbucking pickup was invented by Seth Lover of Gibson under instruction of then-president Ted McCarty. About the same time, Ray Butts developed a similar pickup that was taken up by Gretsch guitars. Although Gibson's patent was filed almost two years before Gretsch's, their patent

3498-416: The original humbucker remains the most common noise-reducing pickup design, inventors have tried many other approaches to reducing noise in guitar pickups. Many instruments combine separate single-coil pickups in a hum reducing configuration by reversing the electrical phase of one of the pickups. This arrangement is similar to that of a humbucking pickup and effectively reduces noise. Examples of this include

3564-409: The output. Solid bodied guitars with only a piezo pickup are known as silent guitars , which are usually used for practicing by acoustic guitarists. Piezo pickups can also be built into electric guitar bridges for conversion of existing instruments. Most pickups for bowed string instruments, such as cello, violin, and double bass, are piezoelectric. These may be inlaid into the bridge , laid between

3630-446: The pickup so the guitarist can choose to have all the windings of the pickup included in the circuit, for a fatter, higher output sound with more midrange, or switch the output to 'Tap' into the windings at a point less than the full coil for a brighter, lower-output and cleaner sound. For example: a full pickup coil may be 10,000 turns of wire and the "Tap" may be at 8000 turns. Because of the confusion between coil splits and coil taps—and

3696-426: The qualities of both. A combination of a microphone and a piezoelectric pickup typically produces better sound quality and less sensitivity to feedback, as compared to single transducers. However, this is not always the case. A less frequently used combination is a piezoelectric and a magnetic pickup. This combination can work well for a solid sound with dynamics and expression. Examples of a double system amplifier are

3762-474: The rareness of coil taps in general—it is difficult to find tappable single-coil pickups for sale. However, pickup manufacturer Seymour Duncan offers tapped versions of many of their Telecaster and Stratocaster pickups. The split single coil may bear little resemblance to popular single coil pickups such as those made by Fender and the P-90 made by Gibson, owing to other differences in pickup construction. While

3828-408: The replacement of the bridge pickup in a Stratocaster-type guitar with a humbucker, resulting in a pickup configuration noted as H-S-S (starting at bridge pickup: H for humbucker, S for single coil) has gained much popularity. Guitars in this configuration are sometimes referred to as "Fat Strats", because of the "fatter", "rounder" tone offered by the humbucking pickup, and are also closely related to

3894-432: The same form factor as a traditional single coil style. Though cancelling hum while preserving the original single coil appearance, stacked designs can sacrifice some of the "bite" in higher frequencies partially due to capacitative effect of closely/machine wound coils as well as other tonal differences resulting from the second coil having the magnet through it also. In some designs one of the coils simply has no magnet, or

3960-406: The same guitar. There are several standards on pickup sizes and string spacing between the poles. Spacing is measured either as a distance between 1st to 6th polepieces' centers (this is also called "E-to-E" spacing), or as a distance between adjacent polepieces' centers. Some high-output pickups employ very strong magnets, thus creating more flux and thereby more output. This can be detrimental to

4026-424: The signal produced by the pickup in relation to high harmonics, resulting in a "fatter" tone. Humbucking pickups in the narrow form factor of a single coil, designed to replace single-coil pickups, have the narrower aperture resembling that of a single coil pickup. Some models of these single-coil-replacement humbuckers produce more authentic resemblances to classic single-coil tones than full-size humbucking pickups of

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4092-464: The string, but for example, a Samick TV Twenty guitar played on the bridge measured 16 mV  RMS (200  mV  peak) for one string and 128 mV RMS (850 mV peak) for a chord. The pickup is connected with a patch cable to an amplifier , which amplifies the signal to a sufficient magnitude of power to drive a loudspeaker (which might require tens of volts). A pickup can also be connected to recording equipment via

4158-410: The time, it became an instant favourite of many hard-rock guitarists, and it remains a popular choice for a pickup upgrade decades later. Pick up (music technology)#Notation A pickup is a transducer that captures or senses mechanical vibrations produced by musical instruments , particularly stringed instruments such as the electric guitar , and converts these to an electrical signal that

4224-447: The two blades. Similar to full/double size hum bucking designs, one coil is reverse wound to cancel hum. Fender came out with their Fender Noiseless Pickups , a stacked bobbin design, around 1998. Fender's Noiseless pickups utilize two separate coils one on top of another, wound with one coil reverse wound to cancel hum, around a common set of magnetic pole pieces commonly referred to as the "bobbin". These "stacked" humbuckers were in

4290-627: Was issued four weeks after Gretsch's. Both patents describe a reverse-wound and reverse-polarity pair of coils. A successful early humbucking pickup was the type which is nowadays known as the " PAF " (literally "Patent Applied For") invented by Seth Lover in 1955. Because of this, and because of its use on the Gibson Les Paul guitar, popularization of the humbucker is strongly associated with Gibson, although humbuckers had been used in many different guitar designs by other manufacturers before. Rickenbacker offered dual coil pickups arranged in

4356-480: Was to be used in pianos, since he was working for Baldwin Piano at the time. The 1939 April edition of Radio Craft Magazine shows how to construct a guitar pickup made with two identical coils wrapped around self-magnetized iron cores, where one is then flipped over to create a reverse-wound, reverse-polarity, humbucking orientation. The iron cores of these pickups were magnetized to have their north–south poles at

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