PICKUP THE PIECES

What’s the difference between high- and low-output pickups, in terms of their influence on other parts of your rig (such as amp and pedals)?

“If we look at something high-output versus something low-output, the higher the output the more juice it’s putting down the cable, if you like. I mean, a pickup’s output is in millivolts, so it’s not huge amounts of current we’re talking about here. It’s very small amounts – but the front-ends of different amps all do react differently to that, and it really does vary from one make to another, because some amp front-ends are very sensitive to what actually hits them, some less so.

“At the end of the day, it’s really about how much headroom it soaks up. So, as a general rule, if something is hitting the amp with a higher output, you’re going to use up more of the available headroom, and that’s going to translate into a more compressed sound – that’s the most straightforward