Edit: Thanks for all the answers <3
In: Technology
A normal microphone works by having a very thin membrane attached to a small magnetic coil – a sound nearby will cause the membrane to vibrate, which creates a small electrical current that we can then use as the input to equipment like recorders or amplifiers.
A guitar pickup however works in a slightly different fashion – rather than using a membrane attached to a magnetic coil to create the current, a pickup makes use of the fact that electric guitars are strung with steel strings, and these vibrating will create a voltage in a magnetic coil.
This means the pickup in an electric guitar will only detect the vibration of those steel strings, not other noise nearby – so in a loud place (such as on a stage) the pickup only detects the guitar and won’t get overpowered by the volume coming from other instruments, speakers or other things.
There are some flaws to the guitar pickup – the first is that they have a very distinctive sound. So while an acoustic instrument will sound essentially the same played acoustically as it will when paired through a microphone and pa, the electric guitar is pretty much useless acoustically, and amped up creates a sound unlike any acoustic instrument that is really created by the amp sand any effects that are being used than the guitar itself.
The other one is that they are not impervious to outside interference, just much better than acoustic instruments – the squeal of feedback you hear is the result of placing the guitar somewhere the volume will start to vibrate the strings, which then gets amplified and vibrates the strings some more and creates as feedback loop. Also you can get interference from things like radio signals and electricity – the hum of an electric light for example can often be picked up by a guitar, and if you hit the right combination of gain stages, poor shielding sand atmospheric conditions, your fist can act like a giant antenna for radio broadcasts.
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