Measuring Resistance of Pickups

[admin]

Perhaps another inadvertant provocative title. Nonetheless, can you tell me whether it is possible to get a reasonable resistance rating from a pickup while it is fully wired. I have read some posts that have suggested that readings can be taken using a patch cord that has the wires exposed and the pickup switch selected for the targeted pickup. It would seem to me, however, that this arrangement would result in a reading that includes more than the pickup winding and hence would not be accurate. Would you please comment? As a follow up. Do you know of any controlled studies that have calculated how far apart two pickups would need to be with respect to Ohm Rating before this difference could be detected by the "average" ear? Thanks.

[Mark]

If you take a 360-12 string (as a for instance) and a 1/4" Switchcraft male plug without any cable hooked to it ,and using a Volt/Ohm meter set to Resistance you will get a really good reading.
However if you touch the leads with both the leads from the Meter and your hands ...you are getting the resistance from your body!Your body is live!

I use a lead with a clip on the ends.This takes my body out of the loop.

If all components are on full and not faulty,and the switch is set to the pickup in question ...then you should be almost dead nuts on.
At least within .1K and for a pickup -----that is ok.You won't hear that variance anyway.

As to the spacing of resistance ,where does human hearing draw a line.....I might guess it to be about .5k but that is really just a guess.

A point often forgotten,
the more windings ,the less high end.
This can be compensated with a change of magnet but this wil generally hold true.

[johnhall]

The resistance you measure with an ohmmeters is simply D.C. resistance and essentially only tells you whether the pickup is good (i.e. not shorted or open) and the general type. Beyond that, there is very little information to be had by measuring a pickup this way. Furthermore, ohmmeters that cost less that say $150, are notoriously inaccurate and useful only for pass/fail checking as described above.

To get any meaningful data about a particular pickup's performance . . . beyond what you can hear . . . you would need at a minimum an impedance bridge, oscilloscope, and audio generator. A flux density probe or Hall-effect sensor for your bench multimeter is also useful.

[markthemd]

I have a Fluke meter that cost me a couple hundred dollars in 1990.It is really nice ,but as John Hall pointed out,it only tells you whether it's alive or dead.

I use it more for electrical work to trace down problems in guitars and when I wire in new circuits in the shop.Like my 230 line for my jointer,table saw and the band saws.