After briefly going over the types of wood that can be used to construct a guitar, I think it's about time we get into the electrical components that give us that great sound we call amplification. Let us start by comparing an acoustic guitar to an electric guitar. The main difference that distinguishes one from the other is that electric guitars are loaded with pickups while acoustics have a resonating chamber that allows the sound to be heard by using the strings vibrations.
With that out of the way, I'll be continuing with the electric guitar and pickups.
The way pickups work can be thought of as complicated but I will just get to the main points. When a string is struck, the vibrations are picked up by the powerful magnets that are contained within the pickups. The concentrated vibrations are then transferred to an amp via guitar input cable where they will be heard as either clean or distorted notes. There are a wide selection of pickups available on the market from many different retailers pushing their products.You have your single coils to your humbuckers to your active blackouts to burstbuckers and the list goes on. I will name a few now from a retailer that goes by the name of Seymour Duncan: Sentient, which is a humbucker that gives off a rich harmonic sound.
Another is Livewire Classic 2 for Strat which is a humbucker that has the appearance and overall same resulting sound as a single coil pickup would have.
Each type of pickup has its own unique look and sound that is produced. The great thing about these are that they can be swapped out for your preferred sound or simply for a new set. In my next post, I'll discuss how to swap out a pickup, the component responsible for allowing the vibrations to be heard through an amplifier, for another pickup. Stick around and have a good one.
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