Pickup Jargon

[RSVampire]

Alright guys. I wanna know all these things. If I go to the Dimarzio or Seymour Duncan website I wanna know these things. How can I tell how much output a pickup has (eachother comparable or just look at it and go "wow that's a high output pickup") What the EQ on each pickup acually means. Pryde7 was kind enough to explain to me a lot of the EQ so it's not a big thing if you don't know or don't include it in your post. I would like to know what the mV means. Like, the Super Distortion has 125mV but the Super 3 has 135mV.....what does that mean? I would also like to know what the d.c. resistence is. So pretty much all the specs on the websites. Thanks a lot in advance. Your help is greatly appreciated.

[bammbamm]

mV is Millivolts as in 1000ths of a volt. The resistance gives you some idea of the number of windings in each pickup and what your overall impedance will be once you install it into your guitar. However, this only gives you a static point of reference and since notes are dynamic varying in frequency and strength, this is not that usefull a reading becaue the values will change dramatically once you put an AC signal through it.. The way the eq'ing is achieved is by the various ways they wrap each P/up; as in how many turns of what gauge wire is on each coil. hope this helps a lil..
Bamm

[darren wilson]

The "EQ" of a pickup will also vary depending on the kind of magnets they use. Ceramic magnets tend to have a harder, brighter tone, whereas the various kinds of alnico magnets (Aluminum, Nickel and Cobalt are the three primary elements in their composition) tend to have a warmer, more "vintage" sound.

[jem7vwh]

Generally, the higher the number of mV (millivolts) listed for a pickup, the higher it's output. This generally means that the signal is stronger. Also, high output pickups usually have a set of common benefits and problems. On the bright side- they compress amps faster so require less distortion, they facilitate articulation of harmonics, and they generally help sustain the strings better. On the negative side, some feel that they can hurt tone by compressing it. Additionally, it's rare to get that "strat twang" out of a standard high output humbucker.

How DiMarzio EQ's the pickups is of little interest to me, but what is good to know is that they're able to adjust the pickup's responsiveness to the range of notes. So certain pickups are very responsive to bass, or mids. The Evolution model for instance looks like an odd W where the bass and treble are tweaked a little but generally the tone peaks in the middle.

[rty13ibz98]

how do you measure it? with a multimeter? if so does it have to be in place to get the inflection off the strings to create current like a small generator? enquiring minds want to know!!!


rich