A single coil pickup is a type of magnetic transducer, or pickup, for the electric guitar and the electric bass. It electromagnetically converts the vibration of the strings to an electric signal. Single coil pickups are one of the two most popular designs, along with dual-coil or "humbucking" pickups.
In the mid-1920s George Beauchamp, a Los Angeles, California guitarist, began experimentation with electric amplification of the guitar. Originally using a phonograph pickup assembly, Beauchamp began testing many different combinations of coils and magnets trying to create the first electromagnetic guitar pickup. [1] His earliest coils were wound using a motor from a washing machine. Later on he switched to a sewing machine motor, and eventually used single coiled magnets.
Beauchamp was backed in his efforts by Adolph Rickenbacker, an engineer and wealthy owner of a successful tool and die business. Beauchamp eventually produced the first successful single coil pickup. The pickup consisted of two massive U-shaped magnets and one coil and was known as the "horseshoe pickup". [1] The two horseshoe-shaped magnets surrounded the strings that passed over a single core plate (or blade) in the center of the coil.
The Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the "bar pickup" in 1935 for its new line of Hawaiian lap steel guitars. The pickup's basic construction is that of a metal blade inserted through the coil as a shared pole piece for all the strings. A pair of large flat magnets were fastened below the coil assembly.
In 1936 Gibson introduced the ES-150, its first electric Spanish styled guitar. [2] The ES-150 was outfitted with the bar pickup. Jazz guitar innovator, Charlie Christian, began playing an ES-150 in the late 1930s with the Benny Goodman Orchestra. This caused the popularity of the electrified guitar to soar. Due to Christian's close association with the ES-150 it began being referred to as the "Charlie Christian Model" and Gibson's now famous bar pickup as the "Charlie Christian pickup" [3] or "CC unit".
The P-90 is a single coil pickup designed by the Gibson Guitar Corporation. [4] [5] These pickups have a large, flat coil with adjustable steel screws as pole pieces, and a pair of flat alnico bar magnets lying under the coil bobbin. The adjustable pole pieces pick up the magnetism from the magnets. Moving the screw closer or further away from the magnet determines signal strength, thus tone as well. There are two variations of P-90 pickup that differ mainly by mounting options:
The Fender Telecaster features two different single coils. The neck pickup features a metal cover and produces a mellower sound, while the bridge pickup has exposed pole pieces and produces an extremely twangy, sharp tone with exaggerated treble response, [4] because the bridge pickup is mounted on a steel plate. These design elements allow musicians to emulate steel guitar sounds, making it particularly appropriate for country music.
Pickups are selected with a three-position switch, and two wiring schemes exist:
The Fender Esquire has a variation to the Vintage wiring scheme by using the scheme on a single pickup. This gives a treble cutoff in the first position, normal in the middle position, and a tone control cutoff in the third position.
The traditional Stratocaster design guitar features three single coils. [4] The guitarist can control which pickup or combination of pickups are selected with a lever switch. The pickup positions are usually referred to as the bridge, middle and neck pickups based on their proximity to those parts of the instrument. The neck pickup typically has the highest output, with the most mid-range and bass response, whereas the bridge pickup has the lowest output (because the strings at the bridge move less) and the greatest treble response, with a slight twang to it. The sound of the middle pickup is similar to that of the neck pickup, albeit with slightly less bass and more treble. However many players, such as Ritchie Blackmore, find it somewhat of an obstruction to the picking hand and loosen the mounting screws such that it lies flush with the pickguard.
Modern Stratocasters have five-position pickup selector switch. Positions 1, 3 and 5 activate only one pickup (bridge, middle or neck respectively), while positions 2 and 4 activate a combination of two pickups (bridge and middle, or middle and neck, respectively). Some pickup sets have a reverse wound and reverse polarity middle pickup that when in combination with the normal bridge or neck pickups will cancel electromagnetic interference (noise/hum) which single coil pickups suffer badly from. The sonic effect of positions 2 and 4 is sometimes referred to as a "quack" or "notch positions", and some guitar notation includes directions to use these pickup combinations. One example is "Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits which is played in position 2 (bridge and middle).
A number of types of noise afflict magnetic guitar pickups. Hum is caused by magnetic fields due to power frequency currents in electrical equipment, whereas buzz is propagated as radio transmissions and sounds more like static. The sources of buzz are many, but an example is an AC power tool with a brush motor. The brush makes and breaks electrical contact with the commutator segment several thousand times a second at variable frequency dependent on load thus causing radio frequency noise. [6] Other examples may include playing near older fluorescent lamps with magnetic ballasts, or high frequency switching DC power supplied from mains power "wall wart" units commonly provided with consumer electronics, computers and smartphones.
Fender-Lace Sensors are a true single coil designed to magnetically shield from hum rather than utilizing the phase cancelling effect common in later double coil/humbucker designs.
Early pickup designs did not include a manufacturing step known as "potting", wherein at various stages, the bobbin and wrapped coil are immersed in a substance in order to lock the windings in place and prevent microphonic effects of loose strands of wire within resulting in feedback at higher gain settings. Common potting substances include heated beeswax and paraffin, or a combination of the two, and thinned enamel paint, used by some to shield the metallic slugs before beginning the winding process.
The practice of not "potting" pickups persists today in both vintage reproductions as well as more value oriented manufacturers, who may skip the potting step in order to reduce manufacturing costs or provide period accurate reproductions.
The search for an acceptable solution to mains hum gained new impetus around 1995 as guitar players became increasingly intolerant of the low noise environment required for single-coil use.
See Humbucker, section Single Coil Form Factor Humbuckers
There are several well-known single coil pickups that have a distinctive sound:
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickups to convert the vibration of its strings into electrical signals, which ultimately are reproduced as sound by loudspeakers. The sound is sometimes shaped or electronically altered to achieve different timbres or tonal qualities via amplifier settings or knobs on the guitar. Often, this is done through the use of effects such as reverb, distortion and "overdrive"; the latter is considered to be a key element of electric blues guitar music and jazz, rock and heavy-metal guitar-playing. Designs also exist combining attributes of electric and acoustic guitars: the semi-acoustic and acoustic-electric guitars.
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 is single coil.
The Gibson ES-150 is a pioneering electric guitar produced by Gibson Guitar Corporation. Introduced in 1936, it is generally recognized as the world's first commercially successful Spanish-style electric guitar. The ES stands for Electric Spanish, and Gibson designated it "150" because they priced it at around $150. The particular sound of the instrument came from a combination of the specific bar-style pickup and its placement, and the guitar's overall construction.
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 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 Gibson Firebird is a solid-body electric guitar manufactured by Gibson beginning in 1963.
The Fender Esquire was a solid-body electric guitar manufactured by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation of Los Angeles. It was the first solid-bodied guitar marketed by the company, and made its debut in 1950.
The P-90 is a single coil electric guitar pickup produced by Gibson Guitar Corporation since 1946, as well as other vendors. Compared to other single coil designs, such as the ubiquitous Fender single coil, the bobbin for a P-90 is wider but shorter. The Fender style single coil is wound in a taller bobbin, but the wires are closer to the individual poles. This makes the P-90 produce a somewhat warmer tone with less edge and brightness, As with other single-coil pickups, the P-90 is subject to AC hum unless some form of cancellation is used.
A P.A.F., or simply PAF, is an early model of the humbucker guitar pickup invented by Seth Lover in 1955, so named for the "Patent Applied For" decal placed on the baseplate of each pickup. Gibson used the PAF on guitars from late 1956 until late 1962, long after the patent was granted. They were replaced by the Patent Number pickup, essentially a refined version of the PAF. These were in turn replaced by "T-Top" humbuckers in 1967, and production ended in 1975. Though it was not the first humbucking pickup ever, it was the first to gain widespread use, as the PAF's hum-free signal, tonal clarity, and touch sensitivity when paired with overdriven amplifiers made the pickups popular with rock and blues guitarists. The PAF is an essential tonal characteristic of the now-famous 1957–1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitars, and pickups of this type have gained a large following.
The EMG 85 is a popular active humbucker guitar pickup manufactured by EMG, Inc. It is paired with the 81 in the Zakk Wylde signature EMG set. It was originally designed to be used in the bridge position but is typically installed in the neck position by modern guitar producers.
The Fender Wide Range Humbucker is a humbucker guitar pickup, designed by Seth Lover for Fender in the early 1970s. This pickup was intended to break Fender's image as a "single coil guitar company," and to gain a foothold in the humbucker guitar market dominated by Gibson.
Fender Telecaster Custom is a model of electric guitar made by Fender.
The mini-humbucker is a humbucking guitar pickup. It was originally created by the Epiphone company. The mini-humbucker resembles a Gibson PAF humbucker, but is narrower in size and senses a shorter length of string vibration. This produces clearer, brighter tones that are quite unlike typical Gibson sounds. It fits in between single-coils and full-sized humbuckers in the tonal spectrum. It is frequently used in jazz guitars, mounted under the fingerboard or on the pickguard.
The Gibson Nighthawk was a family of electric guitars manufactured by Gibson. Introduced in 1993, the Nighthawk represented a radical change from traditional Gibson designs. While its maple-capped mahogany body and set neck were reminiscent of the classic Gibson Les Paul, the Nighthawk incorporated a number of characteristics more commonly associated with Fender guitars. The Nighthawk was not a commercial success; production of all models was discontinued in 1998 after only five years.
The Fender Bullet was an electric guitar originally designed by John Page and manufactured and marketed by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. It was first introduced as a line of "student" guitars to replace the outgoing Mustang and Musicmaster models.
Electric guitar design is a type of industrial design where the looks and efficiency of the shape as well as the acoustical aspects of the guitar are important factors. In the past many guitars have been designed with various odd shapes as well as very practical and convenient solutions to improve the usability of the object.
The Fender Noiseless series is a line of electric guitar pickups made by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation designed to cancel 60 cycle (Hz) hum noise while retaining the characteristic sound of single coil pickups. Introduced in 1998, these pickups consist of a pair of single coils stacked one on top of the other, compacted so as to match the shape and width space as a traditional Fender single coil guitar pickup, while being only slightly taller. The upper coil is actually the sound source, while the lower coil is responsible for the mains hum attenuation. Alnico V magnetic bars span from one coil to the other, crossing a soft ferrous steel spacer plate that isolates them, without touching it. The spacer plate has mainly two functions: to isolate the lower coil from the vibrations of the string, making sure that the sound is picked up only from the upper one, and to increase the magnetic flux that passed through both coils, increasing the output of the pickup. This is to be contrasted with the original noise canceling pickup, the humbucker, which is a double-wide, horizontally adjacent pair of single coil pickups with opposing phase.
The Gibson Spirit was a guitar model sold under Gibson and Epiphone USA nameplates in the 1980s. This article does not refer to the made-in-China Spirit guitar sold under the Gibson Baldwin Music Education nameplate.
Guitar wiring refers to the electrical components, and interconnections thereof, inside an electric guitar. It most commonly consists of pickups, potentiometers to adjust volume and tone, a switch to select between different pickups, and the output socket. There may be additional controls for specific functions; the most common of these are described below.
The Yamaha Corporation is a multinational corporation and conglomerate based in Japan with a wide range of products and services, predominantly musical instruments, motorcycles, power sports equipment and electronics.
The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the tele, is an electric guitar produced by Fender. Together with its sister model the Esquire, it was the world's first mass-produced, commercially successful solid-body electric guitar. Its simple yet effective design and revolutionary sound broke ground and set trends in electric guitar manufacturing and popular music. Many prominent rock musicians have been associated with the Telecaster for use in studio recording and live performances, most notably Bruce Springsteen, Luis Alberto Spinetta, Keith Richards and George Harrison.