Pickup (music technology)

A pickup is an electronic device that converts energy from one form to another that captures or senses mechanical vibrations produced by musical instruments, particularly stringed instruments such as the electric guitar, and converts these to an electrical signal that is amplified using an instrument amplifier to produce musical sounds through a loudspeaker in a speaker enclosure. The signal from a pickup can also be recorded directly.

The first electrical string instrument with pickups, the "Frying Pan" slide guitar, was created by George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacker around 1931.

Most electric guitars and electric basses use magnetic pickups. Acoustic guitars, upright basses and fiddles often use a piezo electric pickup.^{[citation needed]}

A typical magnetic pickup is a transducer (specifically a variable reluctance sensor) that consists of one or more permanent magnets (usually alnico or ferrite) wrapped with a coil of several thousand turns of fine enameled copper coil. The magnet creates a magnetic field which is focused by the pickup's pole piece or pieces. The permanent magnet in the pickup magnetizes the guitar string above it. This causes the string to generate a magnetic field which is in alignment with that of the permanent magnet. When the string is plucked, the magnetic field around it moves up and down with the string. This moving magnetic field induces a voltage in the coil of the pickup as described by Faraday's law of induction. Output voltage depends on the instrument and playing style and which string(s) are played and where on the string, but for example, a Samick TV Twenty guitar played on the bridge measured 16 mV RMS (200 mV peak) for one string and 128 mV RMS (850 mV peak) for a chord.

The pickup is connected with a 6.35 mm audio jack (instrument cable) to an amplifier, which amplifies the signal to a sufficient magnitude of power to drive a loudspeaker (most amplifiers are above 10 watts). A pickup can also be connected to recording equipment via a patch cable.

A pickup is a part of an electric guitar or bass that "hears" the strings and turns their vibrations into an electrical signal. It’s usually attached to the guitar's body, but sometimes it’s placed on other parts like the bridge (where the strings rest) or the neck.

Pickups come in different types:

The pickup plays a big role in how the guitar sounds, and different guitars often use unique pickups to create their own signature tone. Guitar companies use this as a key feature to attract buyers.