Over a few months I've sampled a variety of guitar pickups
It
began when I sensed a relationship between the bar magnet on the
underside of a pickup and a strong attack in the sound it gave to an
amplified guitar.
Different
pickups are often distinguished by their resistance, which accentuates
the placement along the strings from the neck as higher amounts are
favoured closer to the bridge.
While there are
many aspects one would expect, such as dynamics and presence, I found
the presentation of characteristics lack a specific quality.
There
are charts showing brightness and darkness, treble and bass, harsh and
muddy -- okay, I made up the last one -- but I can't think of any
mentioning quack.
The quack of a pickup is a
characteristic that exists on a similar spectrum and becomes more
pronounced as one progresses from neck to bridge.
A
quack is one expression of this sound, which begins more like a burr
that becomes more throaty and pronounced as distortion adds harmonics.
I
think telecasters are renowned for this honky character and I suspect
the harmonics with placement of the bridge pickup are central to it.
However, many highly-wound and higher-output pickups seem to also accentuate this sound.
In
my explorations I feel as though there's a scale of quack that begins
with the Texas variety of pickup, then extends into bluesier and rockier
characters as much as country.
As satisfying as the character sounds with a Tweed style distortion or a Marshall grunt, it's not always ideal.
For example, a serve of twang wouldn't sit with that classic stratocaster sound in the soaring leads of Clapton or Gilmour.
It's just a different flavour, yet the quack isn't as easy to pick as guitar builds.
I've
figured out that I like single coils more than ceramic pickups, which
use the bar magnet, and am now trialling double coils.
When
I began installing different humbuckers I found that some had a twang,
while others gave a harsh blast or a deep and thick sustain.
This is why I feel like a quack rating system is needed, and it could be represented with ducks.
I haven't paddled very deeply into the waters of humbucking, but I expect the pond is full of many styles of quack.