Clean or Dirty Guitar Pickups?
A question many guitar players often ask themselves is, “do I want clean or dirty (distortion) pickups? A good question to decided before any new pickup purchase. High-output pickups are distorted and mostly unpleasant in the tonal spectrum. They generate distorted tones exactly as designed. The usage for these distortion producing pickups are limited at best. Low to mid-output pickups are more versatile and much quieter. They represent better and more clear, clean guitar output signal choices. They’re perfect for clean sounds, however you have the option of dirtying up your sound by changing your amp settings or plugging into distortion pedals. In the myriad of choices for amps you’ll find one that can easily distort at will. Most amps have enough gain to make any pickup generate heavy distortion levels.
It’s important to remember that with all of the ways modern musicians have to “over-process” themselves one fact of physics remains clear. You can always dirty up a clean pickup signal. You cannot clean up a dirty distorted signal. The answer should be a little clearer. Clean or Dirty pickups?
High or Low Output Pickups?
Guitar pickups that are active can make a huge difference in your sound. Active guitar pickups are high output and low-impedance. They also enhance your guitar with quiet operation and lower magnetic requirements. Consequently, there is no unnecessary high magnetic pull on the strings. Heavy passive magnetic pickups will hamper sustain or pull your strings out of tune. Big huge pickups hamper sustain. Active pickups will not do this. YAAYYY! There are a variety of ways to “Activate” a pickup. A small “buffer” preamp will do the work, but it will also amplify the hum and buzz the pickup produces. Just because any pickup is “active” doesn’t mean you’ll get great results just a strong, clean and quiet signal. In The Haywire Custom Shop-we use EMG when active pickups are required. They are one of our favorite. Active guitar pickups are reliable, clean, in addition, sound great
Active guitar pickups are reliable, clean, in addition, sound great and utilize an internal pre-amp (inside the pickup). As a result, not only makes the pickup louder, hence reduces the noise and they were made to be active! In EMG’s the pickups have higher output than traditional passive pickups. The internal preamp is the most efficient way to operate an active pickup.
The proximity of the pickups to the string has a lot to do with higher volume. If that doesn’t do it for you, then use the amp and guitar volume controls.
“You can snug these pickups high…. right up under the strings”
Unlike a traditional passive volume/tone system, the low-impedance EMG system lets you turn down the volume with very little effect on the tone, so you won’t sound muffled when you back off the volume knob. This is much like the Haywire Treble Bleed Option for passive style pickups. Especially relevant you can snug these pickups high right up under the strings so they’ll hear more of the subtle sounds you love, with more harmonics, percussive notes and chimes other pickups fail to hear. Active guitar and bass pickups require a battery but can last up to a year.
Is It Necessary To Choose a Name Brand?
I know lots of people who only wear “name brand” clothing. What if there was something else that fit better, looked and felt better? Would they wear it instead? From my experience- No. Well, the same goes for guitar pickups. To “just a name brand” Lemmings kind of player there’s no changing. However, if they’re intelligent, independent, confident and not easily lead by a crowd and find their own paths that is preferable, right? Could a player benefit from a great set of pickups that just sound good. Most of all, they if they have a good solid signal to process. Would that work? Would it work if it were not a name brand and just a great pickup? So, clean or dirty guitar pickups? Picking a pickup just became easier. The answer should be a little clearer.
The sound of clean or dirty guitar pickups can be determined by several influences…
1)-Alnico magnets: often used in vintage and some modern guitar pickups, will lose their magnetic strength (gauss) over time.
2)-Ceramic Magnets: Conversely, ceramic magnets are magnetically more stable and won’t age as much.
3)-“Aged or road-worn” Tone: induced by the purposeful weakening of Alnico magnets is a technique used as an “aged” or “vintage” tone, they’ll have a softer, mellower sound.
4)-Other factors affecting magnet strength, volume and sound quality:
Age, extreme heat, cold, and strong external magnetic fields can also affect the gauss strength of pickups and frequency response over time.
When a magnet loses its gauss or “charge” to a certain degree, the result will be a loss of output and frequency response. Re-magnetization can strengthen a pickup. It’s possible to re-magnetize pickups, it’s a specialized process and not something readily available to most players. Coil degradation is less common. The tone does not appreciably degrade if the coil is intact, the magnet material can degrade and fall apart. Take care to keep musical instruments in a medium to low humidity environment to slow the aging process.
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