Simply put, the material has internal charges, positive and negative, and they’re separate from one another. The physical reason as to why some materials exhibit this trait is a bit difficult to explain. The current is in close relation with the frequency of the source, of course. It’s nothing more but a microphone but instead of a membrane moving with a coil attached to it and the magnetic field staying constant, the magnetic field changes.Ī piezo-electric pickup uses pressure to create a current. They all work by this same basic principle. That’s how an electromagnetic pickup works, wether it’s a humbucker, single coil, P-90, dynastic etc etc. This change, in turn, forces the coil to create an induction current, which is also synchronous with the frequency (pitch) of the string. The vibrating metal string disturbs that field synchronous with the change of the pitch of the string. The magnet permeates a permanent magnetic field. There are several mechanisms at work in electromagnetism but it’s sufficient to know that a guitar pickup always has a magnet and a coil. The Pierre Curie, the husband of Marie Curie (who became famous for getting two Nobel Prizes, one in physics and one in chemistry and later became infamous for severe radiation poisoning!) conjured a possible link between pyro-electrics and piezo-electrics and indeed, came to a conclusion that they are related.Įlectromagnetism uses coils, currents and permanent magnets to create a voltage. I mention pyro-electrics specifically because that was the get-go of this field of science. Maybe Jimi Hendrix would’ve liked a pyro-electric enducer on his guitar during his famed concert on the Isle of Wright, but most of us don’t carry lighter fluid in our back pockets! The latter does come in handy every once in a while. The first doesn’t really come in handy on a guitar. Pyro-electrics and piezo-electrics are connected in a sense that they are similar but with a different premise: pyro-electrics utilize a heat source on the base material to engage an electrical charge, whereas piezo-electrics use pressure. Electricity plays a major role in practically every scientific field, for instance pyro-electrics and piezo-electrics.Ī simplified explanation on how piezo works. Electricity isn’t just scientifically monopolized by electromagnetism. His work was to be crucial to the study of physics, mathematics and later even quantum mechanics, and cannot be disconnected from what we as guitar players do on a very basic, scientific level. The field got a major boost with the equations of Maxwell, which describe all possible behaviors of electromagnetism. Various scientists were exploring how magnetic fields, light, electricity, conductivity and many other physical phenomena behaved. The end of the 19th century is when experimentation began with electricity, as scientists developed some feel on how solid properties behave in some conditions. How did the guitar develop to what it is today? How do our views change on what constitutes good tone? Those kind of questions keep me occupied during the slow moments of a day, and one day I was asking myself the question: why do we, as electric guitar players, predominantly use sound systems based on electromagnetism and not on piezo-electrics? To answer that question I dove deep in history to see how the two fields, electromagnetism and piezo-electrics, developed to where they are today. I am always intrigued in how things developed.
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