Ceramic magnets, on the other hand, tend to emphasize midrange and theyвЂ™re also far more powerful, by nature than AlNiCo. Vintage Strat and Tele pickups use AlNiCo magnets, by way of example. There are several different formulas (strengths) for AlNiCo (usually labeled by number, such as вЂњAlNiCo 2, 3вЂќ etc.), and they all sound different.

ItвЂ™s hard to give general labels to how these magnet types affect tone, but in essence AlNiCo tends to sound warmer and have a more вЂњvintageвЂќ tone. Even within these two magnet types, there are a lot of variance, and (to make matters more confusing) some pickups even combine both materials at once. When it comes to magnet material in pickups, there are two basic options: ceramic or AlNiCo (an alloy of aluminum, nickel, and cobalt). The magnet positioning and material also has an enormous effect on how your pickup sounds. This all CAN add up to a brighter, more вЂњhi-fiвЂќ sound. ThatвЂ™s just a fancy way of saying that the pickup tends to be a bit brighter when wound this way, and since thereвЂ™s more space in the coil, there tends to be fewer windings, leading to less current generated. This CAN lower the coilвЂ™s distributed capacitance. In essence, a hand-wound pickupвЂ™s windings arenвЂ™t completely adjacent to each other, and thus they have more open space in the coil. There are also two basic ways that the pickup can be wound: machine wound (totally symmetrical) and вЂњscatterwound (hand-wound).вЂќ What are the differences? Well, thatвЂ™s up for debate, because by definition, hand wound pickups arenвЂ™t all the same. The thinner the wire, the more times it can be wound around the coil - leading to a вЂњhotterвЂќ output pickup. There is also a wide variety of different diameters and insulation materials used to create these wires, and all of this can affect your tone in different ways. The diameter of the wire used is extremely thin - often thinner than a human hair.

Often found on 5- and 6-string bass guitars.ДЄn MM-style pickup refers to pickups created by and used on MusicMan basses.The coil itself is extremely important. Soapbar pickups refers to the shape of the pickup housing. These are still very uncommon, but may catch on. Optical pickups use light to sense the vibrations of the strings instead of magnets. The newest kind of pickup available is the optical pickup. Piezos, without the right kind of pre-amp, can sound brittle and thin. Since piezos donвЂ™t rely on magnets it is possible to use non-metal strings such as nylon strings. These are often found in acoustic bass guitars. A piezo pickup senses the actual vibration of the string through contact with the string at the bridge contact point. Piezo pickups are less common on electric basses, but you may run into them. Instead of one double-coil underneath all 4 strings, the pickups are split in two В— each under one pair of strings. This is what you see on Fender Precision basses. Split-coil pickups are basically double coil pickups split apart. Humbuckers tend to roll off some of the tonal highs when they cancel the hum and they usually have more output than single-coils. These pickups are often called humbuckers or humbucking pickups for their hum-reducing qualities. Just as two single-coil pickups can be put together to cancel hum, a double-coil pickup can be created to cancel the hum within one pickup. If you just use one of the pickups, you may pickup some noise. If two single-coil pickups are used (as on a Fender Jazz bass) and the pickup volumes are set equally, the noise will get cancelled out.

Radio waves, computer monitors, and florescent lighting can all cause this humming/buzzing.

A drawback is they can pickup external noise and give off a humming sound. Single-coil pickups are often bright and clear sounding. Single-coil pickups have one coil wrapped around the pickupвЂ™s magnet. There are two prominent pickup designs based on the number of coils used in a pickupвЂ™s construction В– single-coil and double-coil. These fluctuations are then transmitted to the bass amp, amplified and translated into sound. When the vibrations of a bass string disturb the magnetic field of the magnet, small voltage fluctuations in the copper coil are produced. Pickups consist of a magnet around which a copper wire is coiled. Now that weвЂ™ve established the difference between active and passive pickups, letвЂ™s look at different types of pickups that can fall into either the active or passive category.

Single coil vs humbucker bass