How Electric Guitar Pick-Ups Work

1. How Electric Guitar Pick-Ups Work Marshall Alexander

2. Acoustic vs. Electric • Similarities • Both have six strings • Both have tuning pegs for tuning the strings • Both have necks which are aligned with frets

3. Acoustic vs. Electric • Differences • The major differences between electric guitars and acoustic guitars is found at the body of the guitar. • Acoustic guitars have a hollow body where the vibrations of the strings are amplified and released through a hole in body. • Electric guitars can be either hollow, semi-hollow, or solid. The hollow and semi-hollow body electric guitars provide a resonating cavity, similar to the acoustic guitar. • Instead of having a cavity for string vibration amplification, electric guitars have pick-ups.

4. How the Pickup Works • The electric guitar pickups sense the vibrations of the strings electronically and sends an electronic signal to an amplifier. • 2) The pickups are Magnetic and are located on the guitar’s body, underneath the strings.

5. The bar magnet picks up the vibration of the string(s), producingsignal within the pickup’s wire coil.

6. Physics behind the Pickup • The bar magnet is wrapped in thousands of turns of fine wire. (can be as many as 7,000 turns). • Coils and magnets can turn electric energy into motion and vise versa. • In an electric guitar, the vibration of the strings produce a vibration in the magnet’s magnetic field. This is turn, creates a vibrating current in the coil. • Some pickups have one single magnetic bar, and some have six individual magnets.

7. Example of separate “polepiece” magnets for pickup

8. Circuits • The signal is sent by the coil through a circuit. The circuit is generally quite simple on most electric guitars.

9. Important Terms • Tone- adjusted by the upper variable resistor. • The resistor (generally 500 kilo-ohms max) and capacitor (0.02 microfarads) form a simple low-pass filter. • Amplitude (volume) of the signal- controlled by the second resistor (500 kilo-ohms). The signal runs through the jack and then into an amplifier, which then drives the speaker.

10. The pickups are placed between the end of the neck and the bridge of the guitar. • Many guitars have different variations and pairs to give different end results in sound.

11. Single Bar Pickup Separate Pole-piece Pickup http://psyrox.net/britney/gibson10.htm/ http://www.realmusicalinstruments.com/DiMarzio/Electric-Guitar-Pickups/DiMarzio-DP100F-FSpaced-Super-Distortion-Black.asp

12. Amplification and Distortion • Most electric guitars do not consume power. In other words, they are passive. • The signal produced by the vibration of the strings is the sound that travels into the amp. • An amp then takes that signal and produces an audible version of the sound by boosting it enough to run a speaker.

13. References • Brain, Marshall. How Electric Guitars Work.How Stuff Works, http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/electric-guitar.htm • Images without individual citations are taken from Guitar Works Inc. Richmond, VA. http://guitarworksinc.com/ourguitars/