Output Voltage of an electric guitar -- how does it work?

[Xenon02]

Hello !

I've got a problem understanding the pickup ? or the sound ? I don't know I got very confused. I wanted to learn how to make guitar effects although I don't know much about music but I wanted to make. On this website : https://sound-au.com/articles/guitar-voltage.htm Here the Peak voltages of E1 is 100mV and E2 is 300mV, the thing is when there is a chord, I guess it is a E1 and E2 played at the same time so E1 + E2 is 300mV it is the same as single E2 which is also 300mV. That doesn't make any sense to me ... So single string makes E1 sound, and another single string makes E2 sound but playing both strings E1 and E2 makes the same sound as E2 ??????

Second thing is my experimentation. I know about interference and phase shift of the signals. But interference means that the sinewaves must add up to each other right ? Here are the images and the link : https://www.geogebra.org/graphing/merap3ws, so the orange function is the sum of 3 sinewaves (f(x),g(x),h(x)). So f(x) is let's say E1, g(x) is E2 and h(x) is E3 so we have 3 strings (guitar has 6 strings the classic one).
We play all 3 string at the same time so we have 3 sinewaves adding to each other sometimes the sum exceeds value "1" which here it is "3". How does the pickup makes these sound into voltages ? for peak sound "1" it is 0.7V or for peak sound of "3" it is 0.7V ? The maks that pickup can make is 1V but I said 0.7V because it is easier. How does it work ??? What if we have sound that has "20" as a value how does the pickup changes the sound sinewaves into voltage sinewaves ?

Hence I couldn't understand why the output of the guitar is maks 1Vpp or 1V I guess ?

I got so lost because these sums are exceeding this value of "1" and how the pickup "knows" what is the pick of the sound or when he uses maks voltage, when the sound peak is "300","3000" etc ? The sums of the sinus can be alot.

PS. If it's possible to make is simple for goofball like me.

 

[gmax137]

I think @pinball1970 is a guitar player, maybe he can help here.

 

[Xenon02]

I think @pinball1970 is a guitar player, maybe he can help here.

Yea would be helpfull because I just don't get it how the pickup works, because I have some interference knowladge and I shown the pictures of how the sinus can add up and have peak value like "3", "10", etc. but how the pick up works and "knows" what is the maks amplitude and changes it into maks amplitude in voltage instead of maks sound wave amplitude. If what I said makes any sense at all.

;>>>>

 

[berkeman]

Here is a good article on how electric guitar pickups work: https://www.yamaha.com/en/musical_instrument_guide/electric_guitar/mechanism/mechanism002.html

Also, when you are adding multiple sine waves of different frequencies, it is usually the RMS values that you add, not the peak values. You would only add peak values if they were coherent sine waves of the same frequency and phase.

More background on mixing sounds of different phases and frequencies: https://nsinstruments.com/principles/linear.html

 

[pinball1970]

I think @pinball1970 is a guitar player, maybe he can help here.

Drummer but I do hang around with those guys. I'll pass it on.

 

[Drakkith]

Yea would be helpfull because I just don't get it how the pickup works, because I have some interference knowladge and I shown the pictures of how the sinus can add up and have peak value like "3", "10", etc. but how the pick up works and "knows" what is the maks amplitude and changes it into maks amplitude in voltage instead of maks sound wave amplitude. If what I said makes any sense at all.

;>>>>

A simple explanation: The pickup is just a transducer. For a guitar, the pickup magnetizes the guitar strings and the motion of the strings then induces a voltage in the coil inside the pickup. This voltage is then passed through a circuit where it is ultimately amplified and sent to a speaker or some other device for playback and/or recording.

The pickup itself 'knows' nothing. It merely responds to the changing magnetic field produced by the vibrating strings. It does no adding of frequencies or anything else. The maximum amplitude is determined by the strength of the magnetic field of the strings and how quickly it is changing, which is proportional to the how fast the strings move. To be honest, the peak amplitude of the voltage signal is mostly irrelevant. As long as the signal is strong enough to be amplified effectively without undo noise then the peak amplitude doesn't matter. If it's a little too low then you just turn up the volume knob and vice versa.

Also note that there is no sound wave mentioned here. This is because the pickup does NOT detect sound waves in air. It directly detects the motion of the strings. You could, of course, use a microphone to detect sound waves in the air, such as what you would do to record someone playing an acoustic guitar without any pickups, but that's not how an electric guitar works.

 

[gmax137]

Drummer

arghh sorry, I do know that. I remember your posts about playing gigs and the ones about "original or cover"