The Guitar Pickup

The sound of an electric guitar is heard using the pickups. The guitar pickup is a transducer, capturing the vibrations of the guitar strings (which are typically made of steel or nickel) into an electric signal which in turn is converted back to a sound and made louder by an amplifier.

Pickups are used also on bass guitars, and even on some acoustic guitars. The pickup will often be mounted on the guitar body, but can also be attached to the bridge, neck or pickguard. A guitar will usually have 2-3 different pickups, located at different points on the guitar body.

A magnetic guitar pickup is based on the magnetic field of a bar magnet wrapped with a coil of a few thousand turns of fine enameled copper wire. The vibrations of the guitar strings produce a corresponding vibration in the magnet’s magnetic field, and therefore a current in the coil.

Some pickups have a single magnet bar extending underneath all six strings; others have separate pole pieces for each string. The poles will sometimes be made of screws, so that the height of each pole can be adjusted. The closer the pole piece is to the string, the stronger the signal.






The single coil pickup is used mainly in blues, and classic rock. One problem with this kind of pickups is that they pick also electric humming sounds. To prevent these noises, the humbucker pickups were developed. These pickups are comprised of two coils, wound in reverse to each other. The effect of the reverse winding is that the two coils cancel out the humming sound of each other, but double the signal of the guitar strings.

As mentioned before, a guitar will typically have more than one pickup. The guitar pickup combination is called the pickup configuration of the guitar, and is notated by writing the pickup types. A single coil pickup is designated by an “S”, and a humbucker by an “H”. The common notation for the pickup configuration will be designated. Popular configurations are S-S, S-S-S, H-H, S-S-H, and H-S-H.

The single and humbucker pickups are called magnetic pickups. Another type of pickups are the piezoelectric pickups, where the electric field is generated by crystals or ceramics instead of a magnet. These pickups have a very different sound. They are mainly used for traditionally acoustic instruments, such as violins, cellos or double basses. They are usually fitted onto the bridge so to catch the stronger vibrations.

Other pickup types are the optical pickups, which are based on sensing the interruption of an electric stream by the guitar string. An optical guitar pickup is completely insensitive to magnetic or electric interference and therefore has no humming effect.

Pickups can be active or passive. An active guitar pickup needs an external source of electric current, usually a 9V battery, and an active filter and equalizer. Passive pickups are more convenient as they generate their own potential energy, and hence are more popular. On the other hand, the active pickups can give a higher output and are less affected in tone by the amplifier characteristics. Active pickups are more popular on bass guitars because of their solid tone.

EMG pickups are pickups produced by the EMG Company in California. These pickups tend to have a much higher output and are very popular with hard rock and heavy metal guitarists. There are 2 distinct types of EMG pickups: The Standard series is mostly of active pickups, except of the Hz series. The Select series is the low cost, entry level pickup. These are similar in design to the standard series but made with lower quality materials, and are all passive pickups.

Solid, Hollow and Semi-Hollow Body Electric Guitars

Electric guitars can be divided into 3 groups, by the way their body is made: Solid body electric guitars, hollow electric guitars, and semi-hollow electric guitars.

Traditionally, string instruments were built with a hollow body, so that their body served as a sound box, having the sound resonate from inside. Once electric guitars were introduced, the method had changed: The electric guitar uses pickups, which convert the vibration of its steel or nickel cored strings into an electric current which is made louder with an amplifier. This means the electric guitar is not dependant on its sound box.

The early electric guitars were built as acoustic guitars, with a hollow body, using pickups and amplifiers. Solid body guitars were invented only later. The first, or at least one of the first solid body guitars was invented by Les Paul, though the first commercially successful solid body guitar was the Fender Esquire guitar.

Today, all 3 types of electric guitars are used. There is no difference in the way you play the different types, though the sound is different. Also, the size, weight and body profile of the guitar will be different and some people may suffer from this. On general, a solid body guitar will be the heaviest of the 3 types, and the hollow body guitar will be the lightest. Obviously this is due to the amount of wood that is used in the construction of the body of the guitar. Another difference will be the size: The hollow and semi-hollow instruments are usually a bit larger than their counterparts, solid body guitars. That is due both to their use of the sound box, and to the lighter weight which allows for this bigger size.

The hollow and semi-hollow guitars are often referred to collectively as semi-acoustic guitars. This is in contrast to the acoustic-electric guitars, which are actually acoustic guitars with steel-strings which are fitted with pickups purely as an alternative to using a separate microphone. Sometimes they will also be fitted with a piezo-electric pickup under the bridge or a low mass microphone inside the guitar body. With electric acoustic guitars the pickups do not produce a signal directly from the strings vibrations, but rather from the vibrations of the guitar top of body.

Semi-acoustic guitars are said to have a much richer, deep and warm sound than the solid body guitar due to the increased mid-range that is captured. This gives the guitar a more acoustic sound.

Solid body instruments have particularly influenced heavy rock and surf music. Without solid-body guitars, neither of these genres could have developed as they did.

Four Types of Guitars

Guitars are definitively one of the most popular musical instruments of the world today, used practically in all music genres: pop, country, blues, jazz funk, speed metal, heavy metal, Latin, flamenco and more. There are various types and sub-types of guitars, each serving for its own genres, boasting their own unique sound.

Of the various types of guitars, we will speak here about 4 basic types, each of which is ideally played for specific genre of music, or specific classes of sounds. These four types are: (a) the acoustic guitar, (b) the twelve string guitar, (c) the electric guitar, (d) the bass guitar.

Of the 4 types, the acoustic guitar is thought to be the most “basic”, owing its roots to guitar-like musical instruments used over 5000 years ago. The acoustic guitars are strummed by musicians playing in a wide range of music genres. The most common sub-types of acoustic guitar classes would be the steel stringed and the classic guitars. The steel stringed are defined to have one sound hole and narrow necks, and use metal strings. Classical have a very similar appearance to the steel stringed, but have much wider necks and are stringed with nylon strings.

The twelve string guitar type has the look of the generic acoustic guitar, but instead of the 6 strings of the typical guitar, the twelve string guitar has twelve strings – 6 pairs of strings, giving the guitar a richer sound. It is different than the double neck guitars, although those too have 12 strings, but in this type there is only one neck. Normally the strings in the 2 higher pairs would be tuned in unison, while in the 4 lower-note pairs the second string will be tuned one octave higher than the first.



Electric guitars are among the most profoundly influential types of guitars, popularly used by many rock and roll bands. Electric guitars are guitars which use pickups to convert the vibration of its strings into an electric current, and require an amplifier for them to be heard. Other types of guitars, like acoustic guitars, could work with or without amplifiers. The electric guitars may come with hollow bodies, semi-solid bodies, or fully solid bodies, each type having its specific sounds and set of advantages. Special sound effects could be made with electric guitars, like distortions, and are often used in heavy metal music.

Bass guitars are guitars with very thick strings, allowing them to play really low notes. There are acoustic and electric types of guitars of this class, but most bass guitars will be electric.

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How should you Choose a Guitar if you are Left Handed?

Violin, flute and piano players have no choice. Whether they are left handed or right handed, they always have to learn to play in the same way: The left handed will have to get accustomed to play in a way that was designed for right handed players. However, it the case of guitar players the situation is different: for them it is acceptable to play guitar left handed. It is even encouraged to do so.

Many left handed guitar students are drawn to imitate famous rock stars like Jimmy Hendrix or blues legend Albert King- both of whom played right handed guitars flipped over. There are several reasons why they did this, and several more reasons why that is not recommended.

The main reason that a right handed guitar should not be played backwards is that the hardware isn't set up for it. You may never have noticed, but not all guitar strings are of the same length. The length of the strings can vary by as much as a quarter of an inch, with the lower pitched strings having the extra length. If you take a standard (righty) guitar and flip the strings, the higher pitched strings are going to be longer than the lower pitched strings. This will affect the intonation of the guitar, and the guitar will not play in tune, no matter how hard you try to tune it. Hendrix played a right handed guitar strung backwards, but he had a full time technician to set it up this way- an impossible expense for the rest of the guitar playing world.

Some professional players have even more bizarre methods: Albert King played a right handed guitar upside down, but with the strings still strung for a right handed player. This is definitely out of the ordinary, even for left handed players, and it does overcome the problem of knocking intonation out of adjustment. Of course this method of playing has its advantages, but it will make learning the guitar more difficult than it needs to be, by forcing the player to mentally adjust every chord diagram or bit of music. King learned that way because he didn't have access to a proper left handed guitar when he was learning. With few exceptions, in fact, left handed guitars weren't popular enough before the 1960's for manufacturers to alter their product lines to include left hand versions of their instruments.



The relative availability today of left handed guitars mean that a left handed person can learn to play handed the same way a right handed person would. The ergonomics of most guitars (especially electric models) demands that they be played as they were made. Cutaways are made to allow your fretting hand access to higher frets, which are untouchable if you flip the guitar.

Today, when more and more guitar manufacturers are making left hand version of their popular models, choosing which guitar to get is much easier. Otherwise, it’s exactly the same as choosing a right handed guitar- look at how high the strings are off the fret board and how the guitar sounds. A well set up guitar will feel smooth, with no choppiness. In general, choosing to play a right handed guitar left handed is a bad idea, especially today when left handed guitars are getting to be much more available.

What’s Different in a Left Handed Guitar?

Left Handed guitar players are usually advised to buy themselves a left handed guitar – that is a guitar made for left handed people. Many guitar factories produce left handed versions for part of their guitar models, but the degree of their compatibility with left-handed demands varies, depending on how many changes were made to the regular production. On principle, a left-handed guitar should be a mirror-image of a regular guitar, but sometimes the manufacturer will change only some of the guitar attributes and not all.



Below is a list of the changes to look for when examining a left-hand guitar.

• Strings: The first thing you should observe is the strings. The strings in a guitar should be strung so that the lower (thicker) strings would be higher when the guitar is held for playing. That means that the strings in a left-handed guitar should be strung in the reverse order than that of the right handed parallel model.

• Nut: The guitar’s nut is the little strip between the fret board and the headstock on which the guitar strings sit. The slots in the nut should fit the strings that pass through each slot, so that the wider slots would be carrying the thicker strings. The nut should be placed correctly for a left-hand guitar. If you just reverse the strings in a regular guitar without reversing the direction of the nut, the thick strings will have to go through the narrower slots which will increase their wear-and-tear.

• Cutaways: The guitar’s cutaway in a left handed guitar (if the specific model has a cutaway) should be designed to fit a left handed player. The cutaway, which is the indentation in the guitar’s body allowing the player an easier access to the upper frets, should be done in the lower side of the guitar body. Some guitar models have 2 cutaways. In this case, the lower cutaway should be bigger.

• Knobs: The rule for the right placement of the knobs is that they should not interfere with the strumming. That means that the knobs should be on the lower-right part of the guitar head, far away from your strumming hand.

• Pickguard: The guitar's pickguard is supposed to protect the guitar's finish from being scratched by the pick. That means that when holding the guitar in the right direction it should be placed on the body of the guitar, under the strings.