Dylan McKerchie — Electric Guitar Pickups

60Hz Hum Vs EMI/RF Hum in your guitar comes from a few different sources. We discussed how shielding can minimize RF/EMI noise HERE. Electromagnetic interference exists anywhere there is electricity. This is compounded by the fact that anything with a transformer in it, TVs, Fluorescent lights, Power supplies, all emit a lot of EMI because they contain coils. This means that you can have noise from devices that neither share a circuit with your guitar, or are connected in any way. This is because this interference travels through the air. No matter how effectively you have shielded your guitar, you...

Hard Mounted Pickups Vs Rings.... Hard Mounted Pickups Vs Rings... What does it do to the tone? Lately we have seen a lot of guitars being released with the pickups mounted straight to the body with no pickup rings or pick guards. Some people really like the cleaner look, but wonder if it affects their tone. The first thing to remember is the basic workings of a guitar pickup. We discuss this in detail HERE. The short version is that the string disturbs the magnetic field and causes an excitement of electrons in the coil wire that creates an AC...

Why Wire Type Matters... The most common types of pickup coil wire today are, 42 Heavy FormVar, 42 Plain Enamel, 42 Poly, and 43 Plain enamel and Poly. There are a few others too, but these are in your many of the most popular pickups that you are familiar with. What is the difference and why does it matter? Gauge- The number refers to the thickness of the wire. The larger the number, the thinner the wire. Insulation Type- Each of these wire types is insulated. Heavy FormVar adds about .0004" to the diameter. Plain enamel adds about .0002". Poly...

Magnets and Output.. In our blog on Pickup output, we learned that output is more than just resistance.... The strength of the magnet has a lot to do with output. Remember that when the string disturbs the magnetic field, it excites the electrons in the wire and induces an AC voltage. Learn more about how pickups work HERE. The force or how hard the "push" is on the electrons is mainly determined by two things. The strength of the magnetic field, and the position of the coil inside it. If we were to move the coil wire to the very...

What does Scatter wound actually mean? The term "scatter wound" is one of those buzzwords we hear all the time. I have clients ask me regularly "How Scatter wound are your pickups?" So what does this even mean? As we saw from our blog post on handwound pickups, the tension, traverse, and speed (at least at our shop) are all controlled by hand. This differs from a machine wound pickup where all of these variables are automatic. For this discussion we are mostly concerned with traverse. This refers to how many winds per layer are put on the coil and...