Humbuckers vs Single Coil Pick-ups

Electric guitar pick-ups collect or 'pick-up' the vibrations of guitar strings which induce an alternating current in the coils of copper wire wrapped around poles in the pick-up. That current is then passed through potentiometers which modify volume and tone and through a guitar lead to an amplifier. The amplifier then uses either valves or transistors to convert that current to an audible sound and amplify it.

There are two main types of pick-up, the single coil variety found on guitars like Fender's Stratocaster and Telecaster, and twin coil humbuckers, found in Gibson and Epiphone guitars.

The humbucker was originally developed in the late 1950's by a Gibson employee, Seth Lover, in response to a problem with single coil pick-ups. The problem was that single coil pick-ups tend to be vulnerable to electromagnetic interference which produces an audible hum when amplified. The purpose of Lover's twin coil was to buck the hum, hence the name.

The humbucker has two coils of copper wire each wrapped around six magnetic poles. The coils are reverse wound and reversed in polarity. The effect of this is that the electromagnetic interference induces current in opposite directions in each pick-up and is thus cancelled out. At the same time, the signal from the vibration of the strings is increased. This is known as common-mode rejection. Guitars fitted with humbuckers, such as the Les Paul and SG, usually have one pick-up at the bridge and one at the neck, each with its own volume and tone controls and often a metal plate fitted over the top of the pick-up.

The other key property of twin coil pick-ups is that the two coils resonate at different frequencies and so the humbucker has a broader resonant peak than single-coil pick-ups. This broader resonant peak produces a fatter, warmer tone, one of the hallmarks of the Gibson Les Paul and Epiphone Casino, than the clear bright signature sound of the single coil pick-ups on the Fender Stratocaster.