Pick-Ups

The following pick-up tips are excerpted from the website WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES IN THE VARIOUS TYPES OF MAGNETS YOU USE IN YOUR PICKUPS? There are two different types of Alnico magnets used in pickups (Alnico II or Alnico V) plus Ceramics. Here are the basic differences between the three types of magnets: Alnico II is a warmer, more mid-rangy tone with lower output. Alnico V is a brighter, glassier tone with higher output. Ceramic magnets are even brighter and higher in output with a stronger attack and a more "In-Your-Face" type of tone. Often if some one complains that their guitar is too bright sounding, we will recommend Alnico II to darken it down a bit. If some one feels their guitar is too dark and muddy sounding, we will recommend an Alnico V or Ceramic pickup to brighten up the tone. WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NECK, MIDDLE, OR BRIDGE POSTION PICKUPS? The difference in bridge vs. neck/middle pickups is their output. There is naturally less volume generated from the bridge pickup due to less string movement the closer the pickup is to the bridge. Bridge pickups are usually wound hotter than neck/middle pickups to compensate for the reduced string movement. This produces an even output between all the pickups. HOW WILL THE WOOD IN MY GUITAR AFFECT TONE? For more information on how different types of wood effect guitar tone, check out the "Characteristics of Woods" chart on page 137 of the May 1996 issue of Guitar magazine. It gives some very useful information. As far as how it effects our pickups, here is some information about pickup magnets that should help you make your selection:

WHAT IS RESONANT PEAK?
The Resonant Peak is the frequency at which the impedance of a pickup is at its highest. Within a given category of pickups, a higher resonant peak usually indicates a brighter, clearer sound.

WHAT'S A HUMBUCKER?
A humbucker is a pickup design consisting of two coils which are summed electrically out of phase and with magnetic polarities reversed. The effect of the configuration is to cancel hum and other extraneous noise and leave the string signal perfectly intact.

WHAT IS FOUR-CONDUCTOR WIRING?
Four conductor wiring is the practice of independent termination of the beginning and ending leads from each coil of a humbucking pickup to a cable with a common shield. This approach allows much versatility in wiring and switching configurations ie. series/split/parallel, splitting with coil selection, in/out of phase with itself, in/out of phase with another pickup, etc.

WHAT'S A TREMBUCKER?
A Trembucker is a humbucking pickup designed with wider pole-to-pole spacing in order to accommodate guitars with tremolo systems or wider string spacing.

WHAT DOES RW/RP MEAN?
RW/RP stands for Reverse Wind / Reverse Polarity. It refers to the practice of reversing the winding direction and magnetic polarity of one single coil pickup from a two or three pickup guitar. When this is done, hum cancellation can be achieved when using this pickup in combination with a standard wound pickup.

WHAT IS PARALLEL WIRING?
Parallel wiring is the electrical linking of two coils in a parallel or side-by-side fashion. The sonic effect compared to a series configuration is approximately 30% lower output but with additional brilliance and clarity on the high end.

WHAT IS OUT OF PHASE WIRING?
Out of Phase wiring is the electrical linking of two coils or two pickups in either series or parallel but with the signal polarities summed in such a way as to provide at least partial cancellation of the signal. Usually the low frequencies are canceled so the resulting sound is thin, lacking in warmth and often quite brittle. People often refer to this as "Jerry Garcia"-type tone.

WHAT PICKUPS DOES ERIC JOHNSON USE?
Seymour is a long-time friend of Eric's and has wound many custom pickups for him over the years. It's tough to say what pickup he may be using on any particular recording, your best bet is to look for recent interviews or articles about Eric in the guitar magazines where he may discuss the gear he used.

WHAT PICKUPS DOES SLASH USE?
Slash uses our Alnico II Pro Humbuckers in his Les Pauls®.

WHAT PICKUPS DOES GEORGE LYNCH USE?
George Lynch uses our "George Lynch Screamin' Demon" Model. In addition, George plays an ESP Ultra Tone that has 3 of our mini-humbuckers installed: The Seymourized mini-humbuckers in the bridge & neck, with a Custom mini-humbucker in the middle.

WHAT PICKUPS DOES BRENT MASON USE?
Brent Mason talks about a pickup with two types of magnets in a HotLicks video. This pickup is our "Nashville Studio" pickup. It uses Alnico-V rods for the bottom three strings and Alnico-II rods for the top three strings. Currently, this pickup is only available from our Custom Shop, but we do have plans to make it a production pickup that should be available in stores some time this year. By the way, Brent also uses our Vintage Lead Stack for Tele®.

HOW DO I GET LES PAUL® SOUND FROM A STRAT®?
To make your Strat® sound more like a Les Paul®, you probably want to install one of our single-coil sized humbuckers like the Little '59, JB Jr., Hot Rails or L'il Screamin' Demon, depending on what type of tone you're trying to get. Check out the Strat® section of our product listings for more information.

HOW DO I GET LES PAUL® SOUND FROM A TELE®?
Our Little '59 and Hot Rails for Tele® would give you the most Les Paul®-like sound from your Tele®. Both of these are humbucking pickups. The Little '59 is made to give you '59 Les Paul "Patent Applied For" sound. The Hot Rails is made to give you fat, full sound with lots of mids. Both of these pickups come with 4-Conductor cable for a variety of wiring configurations. For the neck, we don't really have anything that is designed to give Les Paul like sound in a Tele but our Quarter Pound for Tele would work well with either of these bridge pickups.

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ACTIVE & PASSIVE TONE CIRCUITS?
The difference between the two preamps is the value of some of the components. If you use the wrong one, you may experience limited range in the treble control. Also, when you blend two pickups to together, you might experience some output loss. The prices are the same for the Active & Passive models (but the 3-band is more than the 2-band).