42 awg magnet wire, plain enamel formvar enamel gutiar pickup wire

At its absolute simplest, a guitar pickup consists of a magnet with a bundle of wire coiled around it. The magnet produces a magnetic field around itself and the wire coil.

The magic bit is this: If you wiggle certain metallic objects (like a guitar string, for example) in this magnetic field, a small electrical current gets generated in the wire coil.

That’s it. Really. You can think of a pickup as being, essentially, a tiny electrical generator* and, when you strum a chord, you are providing the vibrating-string energy which is converted into electrical energy, sent to your amp and made bigger (technical term).

Of course, things can always be made a little more complicated and our magnet and coil can be modified to achieve different tonal aims. First, though, let’s expand a little on our very basic pickup principal.