pickup output

PearlJamaholic

i know pickups have been mentioned countless times, infact i asked awhile ago about getting new pickups. anyways im almost ready to buy new ones but i just have a few questions on output. what does it really mean and what are good numbers to have in bridge and neck pickups and can you use pickups with nearly the same output in both or should their be a certain amount of difference between the two.

and lastly what is dc resistance. i at least know output has something to do with volume but i have no idea what resistance means.

MLC2006

what type of music, guitar, and pickups are you talking about? in some cases, you can use the same type of pickup in the neck and bridge. in my experience, single coils by Fender have low output and particularly the neck pickups are best for blues and not for heavy music because the output is just not there. Gibson pickups have pretty good output but the neck pickups can get somewhat muddy if you try to crank it up too much. active EMG have a lot of output.

Edward Hatspace

"Good numbers" is purely subjective depending on the sound you want to achieve. To get an idea try the Seymour Duncan website:http://www.seymourduncan.com/products/electric/
just to hear their soundclips which are fairly enlightening. In terms of the difference between your pups, it's up to you but I found if I was switching between two pickups that weren't well balanced it was too big a shift and I was having to tweak my volume whenever I switched. Plenty pickup makers sell sets for that very reason.

who's_pearljam?

This is a great question, and it’s great for me because now I’ll try to figure out how to explain it in an easy way..



Here’s how a pickup works.
A pickup is a little electric generator.
There are magnets inside, with a wrapping of thin copper wire. Lots of wire!
Steel strings are attracted to the magnets just like a refrigerator sticks to the little “to do” list magnet.
When you strum the steel string it’s waving back and forth over the magnetic part of the pickup and that back and forth action is what's creating the electric charge.
Copper wire can carry so much of this current, but there is resistance to the flow of the electricity and this is measured as DC resistance. Thinner copper wire has a higher resistance value and the more wire wound around the magnet, the higher the resistance, too.

Two things that determine how strong the electrical output of the pickup are the strength of the magnet and how many windings are on the pickup.
You can have a really powerful pickup with powerful magnets, but the pull of the magnets will dampen the strings and pull them out of tune and create weird noises.
Weak magnets allow a clearer tone and less volume.

DC resistance is measured in ohms, so you’ll see that word a lot. The higher the number, the more DC resistance. K=1000

Sunday morning science class!

So as a really general rule,

Single coils:
3k to 6 k ohms is a clear tone
6 to 9 K is medium
9 to 14 K is high output

Humbuckers:

4 to 7 or 8K is pretty clear
7 to 9K is medium
9 to 14 K is high output.

But there are a lot of variables with different magnet strengths and windings and sized copper wire that can make your head spin!

It looks like you have humbuckers in yours and a lot of sets have more power in the bridge pickup to balance the volume.
The reason for this is that the string is waving up and down and back ad forth over the pickup to generate the electricity. the more it waves, the more sound.
The string has a wider range of movement over the neck pickup than the bridge because it’s more towards the center of the span so a more powerful pickup in the bridge can compensate for that.

Also, the higher the resistance, the more treble is filtered out, so the more powerful pickup (higher DC resistance) the more bassy or muddy or darker or whatever term you want to use.



There’s my short answer!

PearlJamaholic

thanks for that huge write up. that explained alot. how much does dc resistance effect actual hearing volumes? or is that where output comes in?

as of right now im looking at looking at dimarzio paf pros for both neck and bridge on my double fat strat. since i play usually with the neck position and i play through a bassman i get alot more bass than i want. but i like sustain so im looking for a brighter more treble pickup and it seems that the paf pro should do the trick.

so would an output of 300 be balanced in both postions?