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Ok, so I thought I quot;basicallyquot; knew how a pickup worked, and what affected tone, but it turns out i dont. The thing that is puzzling me is resistance and output. What i've been led to believe is the the more output a pup has the more distortion you can get out of it, right? I used to think that resistance and ouput were proportional, an increase in resistance meant an increase in output, but i studied some spec charts and it turns out that this is not the case. So what does resistance do then? If output is independent of resistance, how does resistance affect tone?

This has always puzzled me as well. What we often overlook is magnet strength. The more powerful the magnet the electricity created by the change in the magnet field. BUT if you have 2 magnets of identical strength and one pup has 9K ohms of resistance and the other has 12K ohms you'll find the 12k pup will hit the front end harder. Simply because more wire equals more electrical potential. At least from what my small mind can figure out.

Luke

so then is magnet strength what determines output? Or how much distortion the pup will have.

A combination of both. Your guitar works by the vibrating string inducing a signal due to the strings oscillations through the magnetic field that your pickup creates. The strength of the magnet and the number of turns will determine the o/p. Of course thats just scratching the surface. Magnet material, and wire gauge are also a factor. I don't have enough knowledge to give you the full run down, but I hope this helps.

Magnet types and charges do effect a pickups output with alnico II being the weakest and ceramic being the hottest of the 3 usual magnet types used. It has been my experience that the difference in output between alnico II and alnico V isn't as drastic as most people might believe, though the difference in tone is fairly significant.

The DC resistance of a pickup is also another indicator of a pickups output, but only in general terms. You have to remember that not all pickups use the same guage wire so there is another factor to be considered.

Also there are differences in the way that a pickups bobbin can be wound and this effects tone and may also may effect the output in some small way but as a general rule DC resistance and magnet type can be used to compare output between pickups.

thanks guys that did help a lot, but if i can bother you with one more question. I was on the Dimarzio website and it had the output measured in millivolts and then it also measured the DC resistance. How can i figure out the output of SD pups in millivolts so i can compare.


Originally Posted by flipsidethanks guys that did help a lot, but if i can bother you with one more question. I was on the Dimarzio website and it had the output measured in millivolts and then it also measured the DC resistance. How can i figure out the output of SD pups in millivolts so i can compare.

Now you are on to something. Millivolts is a good way to compare pups..........................HOWEVER, there are too many variable across the spectrum.

pup height
pick attack
strength
single note, or chord,
wiring differences

These all become problems when comparing mV. That is why to get rid of as many variables as possible one would need a machine that can cause changes in the magentic field the same way every time. The pup would have to be mounted the same way, and hooked straight to the meter.....otherwise this measurement means nothing either.

Luke