Charlie Christian pickup

Charlie Christian
Manufacturer	Gibson
Period	1936–1941
Type	Passive single-coil
Magnet type	Cobalt steel bar magnets
Output specifications
Voltage (RMS), V
Voltage (peak), V	Varied
Noise, dBV	Varied
Impedance, kΩ	2.4 - 5.2
Current, µA	Varied
Sonic qualities
Resonant frequency, Hz	Varied

The "Charlie Christian" pickup was an early electric guitar pickup. It was first used on the Gibson ES-150, which entered the market in 1936. The ES-150 was the first electric "Spanish-style" guitar; previous electric guitars had been designed to be played lap, or "Hawaiian" style. Jazz musician Charlie Christian's pioneering use of the ES-150 demonstrated to the world that the electric guitar was a viable instrument. The association between Christian and the ES-150 was so strong that it became known as the "Charlie Christian Guitar" (even though no formal association between Christian and Gibson ever existed), and the pickup that gave the instrument its voice was referred to as the "Charlie Christian pickup."

Although the principle of the magnetic induction coil had been applied to musical instruments for years, the Charlie Christian pickup represented a departure from previous ideas. Earlier pickups featured either a horseshoe magnet that arched over the strings (as found on the Rickenbacker A-22 "Frying Pan"), or a static coil through which a magnet passed, the magnet being vibrated by the guitar's bridge (a design used by former Gibson employee Lloyd Loar on his Vivitone guitar). The Charlie Christian pickup has an appearance immediately familiar to modern guitarists, although it is constructed quite differently from pickups today.

Physical properties

Gibson ES-150 with Charlie Christian pickup

The Charlie Christian pickup consists of a coil of copper wire wound around a black plastic bobbin. The coil has a rectangular hole in its center, and the coil and bobbin fit around a chrome-plated steel blade polepiece. Attached at right angles to the bottom of the polepiece are a pair of five-inch-long (13 cm) steel bar magnets, which remain out of sight inside the instrument. These magnets are secured to the top of the ES-150 by the three bolts visible on the guitar's top. The entire assembly is about six inches (15 cm) long, and weighs nearly two pounds (900 g).

There were three different varieties of Charlie Christian pickup produced by Gibson, and all three are distinguished by the polepiece:

1. The first of these was produced from 1936 until mid-1938 and had a plain blade polepiece. The coil was wound to about 2.4 kΩ resistance using AWG 38 enameled wire.
2. The second type was introduced on ES-150s built from mid-1938 onward, and featured a polepiece that had a notch cut out below the second (B) string. This modification was made to lower the volume of the B string, which sounded significantly louder than the other strings. At this time the coil was wound with a finer wire (AWG 42) resulting in more turns and an approximately 5.2 kΩ resistance, which gave the pickup a higher output.
3. The third pickup was available on the Gibson ES-250, which was available beginning in 1939. The blade on this pickup had five notches, each located between the strings. This pickup also had a more compact internal design. It featured a cobalt steel slug that was small enough to sit directly under the pickup.

Sound

The sound this pickup produced is clear—thanks to the narrow string-sensing blade—and powerful because of the relatively high resistance of the coil. Uneven magnetic flux within the steel magnets could cause some distortion in the signal. Electromagnetic hum was a big problem with these pickups because of their large surface area and utter lack of shielding.

After guitar production resumed following World War II, the introduction of ceramic and alnico magnets made it possible to build a smaller, lighter guitar pickup, but continued demand among jazz guitarists for the then-legendary Charlie Christian pickup led to it being fitted on custom order guitars throughout the 1940s, '50s and '60s.^{[citation needed]} The first production model to feature the pickup since 1942 was the 1978 Gibson ES-175CC, 489 units of which were shipped with "recreated" Charlie Christian pickups. The Gibson Custom and Historic Department began offering Super 400 model guitars with the Charlie Christian pickup in 2000.

In 2007 the Gibson Custom Shop released an "Inspired By" guitar based on John Lennon's modified Les Paul Junior that featured a Charlie Christian pickup in the neck position.^[1]

A number of independent guitar pickup manufacturers offer recreations of the Charlie Christian pickup.

References

1. ^ Gibson Custom Shop Inspired By John Lennon Les Paul Junior; [1]. 2007.

External links

• Seymour Duncan Charlie Christian Retro Pickup
• CC Pickups