Which Pickups ??
By Seymour Duncan

Here at Seymour Duncan, we get phone calls all day long from players who want their guitars to sound better. When our Tone Techs dispense advice akin to, "I'd recommend a Custom Custom humbucker in the bridge position and an Alnico II Pro humbucker in the neck," what brings them to that conclusion? In this month's column we'll discuss two of the most basic concepts used in matching pickups with guitars: corresponding magnet types with wood types, and choosing the correct output level.

As you may remember from previous installments of this column, a pickup in it's simplest form, is a coil of wire wrapped around a magnet or a series of magnets which transduces the vibrations of a guitar string into an alternating current. There are several magnet materials that are used in pickup construction. The magnet-type used in a pickups plays a critical role in why that pickup sounds the way it does.

Seymour Duncan use two general types of magnets in pickup construction: Alnico and Ceramic. Among Alnico, we use two types based on their relative magnetic (gauss) strength: Alnico II and Alnico V. Alnico II has a milder and less-focused magnetic field resulting in a smoother, warmer and rounder tone. Alnico V has a brighter, more dynamic tone with a tighter bottom end. Ceramic magnets produce a more aggressive tone with a punchier bass and enhanced upper-mids than even Alnico V.

Here's a chart that shows the different magnet types with the general tones and, specifically, the distortion tones, with which they're associated:

	Alnico II	Alnico V	Ceramic
General Tone	Warm, smooth, round, enhanced mids, soft and spongy bass, soft attack	Bright and glassy, exceptional dynamics and tight bass end, sharp attack	Bright with enhanced upper mids, hard, aggressive harmonics, compressed dynamics and punchy bass
Distortion Tone	Full and round	Full with a bright top end	Crunchy and sizzly

OK, enough of the review . . . In order to understand matching magnets with woods, you need to understand the use of the words "warm" and "bright," as they apply to tone. "Warm" reflects a lower resonant peak with rolled-off upper-mids and highs, typically in the 3 to 5 KHz range (for conventional humbuckers). "Bright" is the exact opposite, signifying a tone that is saturated in upper-mids and highs, typically with a resonant peak above 6 KHz.

Imagine this: you're standing directly in between two guitars: one on your right and one on your left. They are similar guitars in terms of the construction: same pickup types, same neck joint, same scale length, same number of frets, same hardware, etc., except they're made of different woods. The guitar on the right is noticeably warmer, even when you strum it acoustically as compared to the guitar on the left that is brighter sounding. Now, picture this: where you're standing - in the middle, between the two guitars - is what we'll call "Good Tone": the perfect blend of warmth and brightness. As a Tone-Guru-In-Training, your quest is to figure out how to move both guitars from the realm of too-much-warmth or too-much-brightness into the blessed light of Good Tone. (Angels sing here). For the purposes of this column, we'll assume there's an objective "Good Tone" and ignore the aesthetic implications of such an assumption. Fair enough?

Here's the general rule. If the guitar is too bright sounding and you want to warm it up, use a pickup with an Alnico II magnet. If the guitar is warm and you want to brighten it up a bit, use a pickup with an Alnico V magnet. If you want to brighten it and add more bass end punch and compressed dynamics, use a pickup with a ceramic magnet.

How do you know if a guitar is bright or warm sounding? The best method is to actually play the thing. If you can't play it (like our telephone tone techs) or you'd rather rely on reliable empirical knowledge rather than your ears, then refer to this chart and it will help you match magnets with woods:

	Alnico II	Alnico V	Ceramic
Neck and Body Woods	Maple, Ash, Walnut, Pao Ferro, Alder, Graphite Composites	Mahogany, Korina, Koa, Bass, Alder, Poplar, Ash	Mahogany, Korina, Koa, Bass, Alder, Poplar
Fingerboard Woods	Maple, Ebony, Carbon Graphite Composites	Rosewood, Walnut	Rosewood, Walnut

You'll notice that some woods are associated with more than one magnet type. Also, a combination of woods can lean the guitar towards one magnet type over another. For example, a mahogany neck and body would coincide with a warm tone that you might want to brighten up with Alnico V or ceramic. However, if the guitar also incorporates a thick (more than ½") maple top along with an ebony fingerboard, for example, it would probably tip towards the bright end of the tone-spectrum, in which case, an Alnico II magnet would be the better choice.

Now that you know the basics of matching woods with magnets, add one more element to the mix: output level. You can choose between moderate and high-output pickups using any of the magnet-types mentioned in this column. High output pickups will drive the input stage on your amp harder creating more compressed distortion at lower volume levels. They're great for heavy rock. Moderate output pickups are more versatile in that they typically offer better clean tones, which can be distorted easily using your amplifier's gain. These pickups are great for jazz, fusion, blues, classic rock and country. Which output level you chose should be based on your personal playing style.

Using the guitar example above with humbuckers, if you wanted a high-output bridge pickup and a moderate output neck pickup, using the Alnico II that the woods indicate, you would most likely choose a Custom Custom (14.4K d.c. resistance) for the bridge position and a Pearly Gates (7.3K) for the neck. If you wanted moderate output all the way around with better balance between the pickups, you might chose an Alnico II Pro for the neck (7.6K) and bridge (7.85K).

If our guitar example had suggested the use of Alnico V magnets - say, if the body and neck were all-mahogany with a rosewood fingerboard - then our high-output bridge pickup choice would be the JB (16.4K) matched with the Jazz neck (7.7K) for moderate output. Or, we could chose the '59 set for a balanced, moderate output neck (7.4K) and bridge (8.1K).

While these examples call for Seymour Duncan pickups, the basic principles depend less on the brand name associated with the pickup than with its magnet type and output level. It's really pretty simple: First match the magnet with the wood, and then choose the output level.

'Till then, go for the tone!

Would you like to write a Gearhead Article ??? to be a "Norman Bates Gearhead"..........Email us a short 2 or 3 paragraph description and links etc to info@musictoyz.com