Guitar Pickup

Guitar Pickup

Finding a Good Guitar Pickup

If you know a guitar player, or live with one like I do, you probably have heard of guitar pickups and wonder what the big deal is. My husband can go on and on about them for hours, and he is always talking about new ones he hopes to get. Though I don't really understand why the different types are indeed different, he seems to know what he is talking about, and he has become an expert at installing new ones. He even knows when they can be resold and when they really aren't worth much any longer. I wish he applied the same knowledge to other things around the house, but that's a different story all together.

Guitar pickups, apparently, are all different. The kind you want to buy will depend on what style of music you like to play. Each of the different guitar pickups has a different sound, and if you have the wrong type, it just isn't going to sound right. The pickup actually picks up the sound from the string before it is sent to the amplifier. So if you have a pickup made for a country sound, it's not going to sound right when you play Metallica songs. Though for some people, this may be the perfect way to get a unique sound in your band that no one else has.

You can find guitar pickups online and in your local music store, and you will find that the prices range from pretty cheap to oh my goodness who has that kind of money to spend on a guitar part. My husband seems to like the latter type, though I guess I can understand that. He wants a good sound and if that's what he wants, who I am to judge? I spend enough money on my things; he should be able to buy the guitar pickups that he really wants to get.

That doesn't mean I understand completely, but it's not my job to understand. As long as he lets me go see the Wiggles whenever I want, and lets me redecorate the bathroom whenever I feel the urge to do so, then I guess I can't complain about the cost of his guitar pickups, or any other guitar accessory for that matter. Now when he starts to talk about diamond studded guitar pickups then I might just have to draw the line. They don't make those, do they?

How do you fix an electric guitar pickup / toggle switch?

I have an epiphone SG and it used to work perfectly, but one day, only one of the pickups was working, when the toggle switch was at one end that pickup worked fine but at the other end their was no sound, but in the middle their was also no sound which is why i thought it was the switch, I got this fixed and i think he said he just cleaned the switch, but shortly afterwards it happened again, and i would like to know how to fix it, Yesterday, i opened up the back and used a screw driver to push the contact in a little, this helped as now the other pickup does work, but it is very crackly, whereas the one that was working all along sounds fine. I am sure it is quite simple but I dont know how please help. Do i just need a little isopropyl or something to clean it with? If so, How would you use this? (I read this on the web while looking for answers)
I have just been using one pickup since then, but i would like to be able to use both.

Given that the problem keeps coming back, I would replace the switch altogether. They aren't that expensive and it's a permanent fix. If done well and with the right switch, its not likely to fail on you again.