Pickups: Rothstein Guitars

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Pickups aren't the easiest thing to purchase.

We understand this. For starters, there are an abundance of manufacturers offering a wide variety of replacement pickups these days. It is also rather difficult to accurately gauge what is best for yourself unless you happen to be fortunate enough to have the opportunity to actually compare various pickups first hand with your rig. To top it all off, you will hear all sorts of conflicting opinions, many of which come from total strangers on message boards who may have all kinds of hidden agendas.

Our goal at guitar-mod.com is to help streamline some of this information to hopefully help you make a sound decision based on facts and not hype.

How Do Pickups Vary, and Which of These Variables Really has an Effect on Tone?

Lets take a look at the various parts of a pickup that may vary from one manufacturer to the next, or one model to the next.

Pickup Resistance - measured in ohms (k) will give you an idea of the pickups output. Many manufacturers actually wind to a specific number of turns, as opposed to straight resistance which is why you may see some variation. Either way you look at it, the result is the same:

more turns (or more resistance) = more output and more midrange and less highs

less turns (or less resistance) = less output and less midrange and more highs

Magnets - most magnets used in pickup production are either Alnico V, II, and Ceramic, however you will also see Alnico III (as in the case with Lindy Fralin Real '54's). Alnico stands for Aluminum, Nickel and Cobalt. The magnet selection most definitely has an effect on tone

Alnico II - This provides the warmest tone, as well as decreased dynamic range. It also has the least string pull so you can set the pickup height a lot closer to the strings without having any tuning problems.

Alnico V - This is widely used in pickup production and has a brighter tone than Alnico II.

Alinico III - These were used by Fender in 1954 Strats. Expect these to be about 5% brighter and have 5% more lower mids.

Ceramic - Even brighter than Alnico V or III, and often used for high output pickups to help counterbalance the treble lost by the higher resistance (remember higher resistance means more midrange, but less highs).

Gauge of Magnet Wire - this definitely has an effect on tone.

43 gauge wire will have more high end, but less volume than 42 gauge wire wound to equal resistance. This is the main difference between the Lindy Fralin Steel Pole 42 and Steel Pole 43 pickups. The 43 gauge wire is thinner, and the laws of physics dictates that thinner wire has a higher resistance per foot, so the end result is fewer turns of the coil are needed and the physical size of the coil will be smaller.

Type of Wire - thin copper wire which comes with an insulating coating. Some believe this has an effect on tone, but I am not among them.

Single Build Polyurethane Nylon wire (SPN) - A very common wire used in pickup production today. The insulating coating is polyurethane with nylon which is very durable.

Plain Enamel - used on many early Fender pickups

Formvar - used on many Fender pickups in the 60's. Formvar has a thicker layer of insulation which results in a larger physically sized coil for a given resistance, and some people believe this results in a warmer sound. Many pickup manufacturers dispute this point, so the jury is still open on this one.

Winding Technique - the winding technique used by the pickup winder.

Each winder has his/her own technique which will ultimately effect the final tone. You will often here the term "scatter winding." Scatter winding is the process of guiding the wire by hand in a random pattern. This can only be accomplished by hand, although I'm sure computers can be programmed to simulate this. Many feel that the uneven layering you get with scatter winding lowers the overall capacitance which equates to more top end.

Wax Potting - the process of encapsulating the coil to reduce microphonics, which is characterized by high pitched squealing..

Pickups are generally potted in either wax or lacquer, although most manufacturers use wax these days. Many feel that lacquer doesn't penetrate the coil as well as wax.

How do I choose a pickups?

First, remember the Joe Jackson song "You Can't Get What You Want, Until You Know What You Want." Start, by asking yourself the following 5 questions:

What type of sound are you after?

How would you describe your guitar tone currently (bright, dark, warm, muddy, etc.)?

How would you describe your amp tone (bright, dark, etc..)?

How much are you willing to spend on a new set of pickups?

Can you deal with 60 cycle hum?

Let me give you a couple of real examples.

MY OWN ALDER TELE - One of my main gigging axes is an alder Tele with a rosewood fingerboard. Alder is warm sounding wood, and rosewood can be a bit on the dark side. My primary amp is Rivera Fandango which sounds terrific, but again, is a very much a dark sounding amp. I have counterbalanced these darker elements with a set of slightly underwound Stock Fralin pickups. The end result is a great tone! The extra highs and twang of the pickups work tremendously well counterbalancing the darkness of the rig. I have played the same guitar through brighter amps, and the result is too bright for my liking, but through my Rivera the result is absolutely perfect. 60 cycle hum isn't much of an issue for me since the position I use the most is position 2 which is hum-canceling since the pickups are of opposite polarity.

A CUSTOMER'S ASH STRAT - A guitar-mod.com customer does quite a bit of session work and his 2 main objectives were versatility and quietness. He wanted the guitar to be able to go from Stevie Ray, to Joe Pass to Angus Young! Since he demanded no 60 cycle hum, I recommended he look at the Virtual Vintage series by DiMarzio. The setup I recommended was a Blues in the Neck (DP402), 2.1 in the Middle (DP401), and a Heavy Blues in the Bridge position (DP403). The neck pickup is great for getting that Stevie Ray Vaugh blues sound, as well as a pretty convincing yet modern be-bop tone with the tone rolled down. The 2.1 in the Middle gives you a great "notched" quack in positions 2 and 4, and the Heavy Blues in the bridge can helps him get an aggressive and fatter bridge tone. I also suggested he use a "neck-on" switch to get 2 more tones (neck/bridge as well as all the pickups on) for even more versatility. He was quite happy with the results!