How to Use Humbucker Pickups in Jazz Guitar

A pickup on an electric guitar uses the mechanical vibration of the string as input and sends it to the amplifier where it is converted back into sound. There are two basic types of pickups: single coil and double coil, also known as a "humbucker." The following steps will explain why jazz guitars use humbucker pickups almost exclusively.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. Study the function of a single coil pickup. It is basically just a permanent magnet with a few thousand turns of copper wire around it. When a string vibrates through this electromagnetic field, an alternating voltage is produced and sent to the amp.

2. Examine the effect of mains hum on single coil pickups. They also pick up other electrical signals such as the amp's power supply, resulting in a 60 Hz hum (in the United States) that is easily audible.

3. Identify the sound of single-coil pickups. This design produces a hotter, sharper sound that is considered desirable despite the noise, especially for a lead guitar in hard rock music. However, this sound is quite undesirable in jazz guitar.

4. Consider the use of humbucking pickups to address the problems of single coil pickups. Humbuckers consist of a pair of single coil pickups with reversed polarity but wired in series. This tends to cancel out the hum ("bucks the hum") produced by alternating current and dramatically increase the signal-to-noise ratio of the pickup.

5. Observe the effect of a pickup's design on the sound it produces. Humbuckers produce a much warmer, fatter sound. The improved signal-to-noise ratio produces cleaner chords that allow the individual notes to be heard more easily.