Single coil guitar pickup

In the mid-1920s George Beauchamp, a Los Angeles, California, guitarist, began experimentation with electric amplification of the guitar.

Beauchamp was backed in his efforts by Adolph Rickenbacker, an engineer and wealthy owner of a successful tool and die business.

The pickup's basic construction is that of a metal blade inserted through the coil as a shared pole piece for all the strings.

Jazz guitar innovator Charlie Christian began playing an ES-150 in the late 1930s with the Benny Goodman Orchestra.

However many players, such as Ritchie Blackmore, find it somewhat of an obstruction to the picking hand and loosen the mounting screws such that it lies flush with the pickguard.

Hum is caused by magnetic fields due to power frequency currents in electrical equipment, whereas buzz is propagated as radio transmissions and sounds more like static.

Early pickup designs did not include a manufacturing step known as "potting", wherein at various stages, the bobbin and wrapped coil are immersed in a substance in order to lock the windings in place and prevent microphonic effects of loose strands of wire within resulting in feedback at higher gain settings.

Common potting substances include heated beeswax and paraffin, or a combination of the two, and thinned enamel paint, used by some to shield the metallic slugs before beginning the winding process.

The search for an acceptable solution to mains hum gained new impetus around 1995 as guitar players became increasingly intolerant of the low-noise environment required for single-coil use.