Electric Guitars and Pickups
Journey of Guitar Solo - CollectiveCadenza
In acoustic guitars, vibrating strings send waves into the body and these waves resonate and amplify as they bounce around the guitar before leaving and entering our ears. Electric guitars on the other hand do not have these openings - they are generally made of solid wood. Instead, the vibrations are converted into electrical current, are processed, and convert back to sound waves inside of an amplifier. The pickups are where all the magic begins and are probably the most important part of an electric guitar. The electric guitar I use in my dorm room has a total of three pickups: one double-coil near the body-end of the strings, a single-coil at the top of the body, and another single coil in the middle of the other two.
The pickups in an electric guitar are a transducer, capable of converting a mechanical vibration into electricity (Duncan). They consist of one magnet per string on the guitar (normally six) and the magnets are wrapped thousands of times by a copper coil. The magnets are produce a stable magnetic field around the area of the strings. The magnets are permanent magnets and are constantly producing this magnetic field until the vibrations of the strings disturb this.
Figure 1. Double and Single Coil Pickups
When a string is plucked, its vibrations initiate an electric current in the coil and this current fluctuates with the movement of the strings (Duncan). As we learned last week, certain notes have a certain frequency about them. A string vibrating at a certain frequency produces the same frequency of current in the pickup of the guitar.
In addition to the pickups, the strings of an electric guitar must be metal in order to produce sound with an amplifier. This is because their magnetic properties are what interact with the pickups and allow them to function.
Multiple pickups can be useful in an electric guitar, and they can be selected using a pickup selector switch. Strings near the bridge of the guitar pickup the highest frequency sounds whereas a pickup placed higher up will detect lower frequency sounds, or more bass due to lower tension in the strings.
Works Cited:
Collective Cadenza. (2013, Sept 19). Journey of Guitar Solo (THE INSTRUMENTALS). [Video] Retrieved 16 Feb. 2017 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GBu1hpgg4I
SeymourDuncan. (2016). Pickups 101: Getting Started. Retrieved from: http://www.seymourduncan.com/support-pickups-101/getting-started
Another very interesting and well-written post on guitars demonstrating your knowledge and love of music. I loved the 60 years of music clip! JM
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