software

What effects do covers have on pickups? and is it posible to put a cover on a pickup without one?

in my view, its purely an aesthetic issue. But, some people would say pickup covers shield more against unwanted noise and you can also lose some of your pick attack.

most pickup manufacturers sell pickup covers as well. Depending on the polepieces of the pickup, you can get covers. Im not sure but i think to be covered a pickup has to have one side of screw in pole pieces.. or you can get covers for bladed pickups like Tony Iommi pickup covers. Bottom line is, if you want pickup covers bad enough, you can put them on anything.

they make your pickups prettier.

They do take just a tiny bit of treble away. Depending on the application, that may not be a bad thing. I did notice a difference when I pulled the cover off my Seth Lover. Just a touch more clarity.

A metal cover affects the capacitance of a pickup. It's akin to using a slightly less transparent (or longer) cable in your set up or using a slightly larger tone cap. Some people hear the difference, some don't.

I prefer covered, only from a visual point of view. The only time I noticed a difference is when I took the covers of an old SG Standard I used to have, and used the guitar for slide (Duane Allman stuff). Sounded great.

A metal pickup cover will, very slightly, alter the magnetic field. You may or may not be able to tell a difference. You could also THINK you can tell a difference because of a preconcieved notion. So the best bet may be to try it and see. If you're super worried about it, and can find one that looks nice, a plastic pickup cover would have no effect on the sound.

I posted this in a similar thread about pickup covers. Here's what's going on:
The non-porous material that SD use for the Covers were specifically selected because it does not affect the tone of the pickup. The original pickup covers that Gibson used in the original PAF in the '50's were made out of pressed sheet metal that made them good conductors. Not good. The Humbucker was first designed to have a metal cover to help shield against external noise. It is connected to the outer shielding of the pickup lead wire via the base plate, which also acts like a shield. This way, the external noise can be trapped by the cover and routed to the ground. This method is highly effective, but there is one drawback: ''stray capacitance'' appears between the cover and the coil. On the structure of the humbucker, although unintended, the cover and the coils are laid out in such a way as to create a capacitor. The resulting unintensional capacitance is called ''stray capacitance'', and it is extremely small in value. In this situation, certain upper frequencies of the signal produced by the strings may leak from the coil to the cover and eventually go to the ground. The cover is acting as a tone filter, making the sound less bright. If we reverse this effect, removal of the cover may make the sound sharper and brighter. This is because the leak is stopped. All the high frequencies which were otherwise thrown out would come back to life. Players were able to gain more clarity by removing the covers. That's why when Eric Clapton and Greg Allman took the covers off from their LP's pickups experienced significant amount of tone improvements. Countless other famous artist did the same thing. Even Page and Beck did the same after seeing Clapton do this.
Nowadays, modern covered humbuckers don't suffer anymore from high end loss because of the quality and type of non-conductor material used on making the covers ( German Nickel ). I, personally prefer covered humbuckers simply because to me, they give my Les Pauls more of the Vintage appeal. Specially now that the covers are made 100 times better than the old ones and does not affect tone anymore.

I removed the covers of my Les Paul's. IMO the sound gets a little brighter. I dont know if I would notice in a blind test though.

And I like the sight of the naked pick-up better...

By the way, have anyone here tried to make their own plastic cream colored pickup covers out of ordinary white ones? I tried, and i succeded!

I just laid mine in a cup of coffee in a week, and voila!

Schrew Dimarzio!
-Erlend

I was a staunch Cover-On-Cover-Off-There-Ain't-No-Difference-Either-Way kind of guy until I took the cover off my Seth Lover, which at the time I was only doing to swap in an Alnico 3 magnet.

But when I took it off, lo and behold it was a zebra -- so since the Custom Custom in the bridge of my v-burst 355 was also a zebra I figured I'd try it out to see how it looked.

Let's review: Swapping a magnet was the only reason I took it off and putting it back in without a cover was purely to see how it looked with the other zebra pickup. Getting quot;more treblequot; was the furthest thing from my mind.

But I noticed it was even more clear and articulate with the cover off. I know it's a modern non-conductive cover and so that's not supposed to make a difference anymore, but there it is.

By the way, it looks extremely cool. Don't think I'll be putting the cover back on.


Originally Posted by Old GhostI posted this in a similar thread about pickup covers. Here's what's going on:
The non-porous material that SD use for the Covers were specifically selected because it does not affect the tone of the pickup. The original pickup covers that Gibson used in the original PAF in the '50's were made out of pressed sheet metal that made them good conductors. Not good. The Humbucker was first designed to have a metal cover to help shield against external noise. It is connected to the outer shielding of the pickup lead wire via the base plate, which also acts like a shield. This way, the external noise can be trapped by the cover and routed to the ground. This method is highly effective, but there is one drawback: ''stray capacitance'' appears between the cover and the coil. On the structure of the humbucker, although unintended, the cover and the coils are laid out in such a way as to create a capacitor. The resulting unintensional capacitance is called ''stray capacitance'', and it is extremely small in value. In this situation, certain upper frequencies of the signal produced by the strings may leak from the coil to the cover and eventually go to the ground. The cover is acting as a tone filter, making the sound less bright. If we reverse this effect, removal of the cover may make the sound sharper and brighter. This is because the leak is stopped. All the high frequencies which were otherwise thrown out would come back to life. Players were able to gain more clarity by removing the covers. That's why when Eric Clapton and Greg Allman took the covers off from their LP's pickups experienced significant amount of tone improvements. Countless other famous artist did the same thing. Even Page and Beck did the same after seeing Clapton do this.
Nowadays, modern covered humbuckers don't suffer anymore from high end loss because of the quality and type of non-conductor material used on making the covers ( German Nickel ). I, personally prefer covered humbuckers simply because to me, they give my Les Pauls more of the Vintage appeal. Specially now that the covers are made 100 times better than the old ones and does not affect tone anymore.

That's a great post. I wasn't aware of that. Sounds like the perfect solution. Thanks.


Originally Posted by Old GhostNowadays, modern covered humbuckers don't suffer anymore from high end loss because of the quality and type of non-conductor material used on making the covers ( German Nickel ).

That's what Evan said on the factory tour. He said covers will make pretty much no noticeable difference.