eli5,How do the Pickups in a guitar/bass work?

Question

eli5,How do the Pickups in a guitar/bass work?

In: 18

Answer 1

High school physics tells you that a magnet moving near a coil generates electricity.

Pickups are both the coil and *some* magnets, but not *the* magnets. Instead, the magnets in the pickups induce magnetism in the strings, and its these magnets which wobble over the coil and create a signal.

This is why you can’t use acoustic bronze strings on an electric guitar: they don’t react as well to magnetism.

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I must confess to an ironic chuckle when I hear “experts” declaiming on the relative merits of AlNiCo 2,3 or 5, or ceramic magnets and their effect on tone, but who **never** mention the properties of the strings that actually do the work …