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Electric guitars have components that are absent in most acoustic guitars. One of the most basic is the pickup. That’s a small electrical device, often near the center of the soundboard, that ‘picks up’ the vibrations produced by the strings and transmits them down wires to be amplified.

Pickups at their most elementary are just a cylindrical magnet wrapped with wire. That arrangement gives them their alternate name: a coil.

But out of that simplicity comes a great result: as the string vibrates the magnetic cylinder, a voltage is created in the coil of wire. That voltage pushes electrons down the wire to the amplifier and, voila, sound.

But for all that simplicity, there are a dozen complex variations within pickups.

Some have stronger magnets, producing a higher voltage and a different tone. Iron is an easily magnetized material, so it could be used. But it tends to rust and has other undesirable qualities.

So alloys, such as Alnico (a combination of Aluminum and Nickel, a readily magnetized metal) became more widely used. Later, certain ceramics were introduced that have yet another tone and have become standard.

How many turns there are in the wire makes a difference, as does the type and thickness of the wire since different kinds have different resistance properties.

Whether there’s any space or material between the cylinder and coil affects the final effect. More turns attenuates (dampens) the lows while accentuating (emphasizing) the midrange.

To make the situation even more complicated, there are common pickup types called humbuckers. One of the inherent flaws in an ordinary single magnet and coil arrangement is the tendency to produce a hum at around 60 cycles. 

A humbucker is a pickup whose design is arranged to cancel out (or buck) that hum. It achieves that by having two coils, each with turns in the opposite direction. Those opposed directions produce electric and magnetic fields with opposite polarity.

Not satisfied with that level of complexity, designers began to experiment with double and even triple pickup arrangements. Vibrations at different points along the string can have subtle variations, and having a double pickup can allow for interesting interactions between the two.

Moving the pickup from the base of the neck or up slightly onto the fretboard can alter the resulting sound, as well. Similarly, moving the pickup slightly lower toward the bridge where the strings are terminated and vibrations are dampened also produces a different result.

The variety of pickup ‘sounds’ on the market today is astounding. The only way to decide which design is best for your circumstances is to experiment, keeping track of the different types you encounter.