How do acoustic pickups work with bronze acoustic strings?
Sound hole acoustic pickups work much the same as electric guitar pickups. Most acoustic instruments use bronze strings or some variation. The magnet field within the pickup has to be balanced to meet the needs of a particular strings used on the instrument. The inner core of bronze strings is normally the same spring steel or piano wire as used on electric guitar strings. Acoustic strings are usually heavier on acoustic instruments and the bronze outer wrapping gives the instrument a better tone as compared to electric guitar strings. So basically the acoustic pickup is sensing the diameter of the spring steel used on a particular string. Often the “B” string is most pronounced on an acoustic and even jazz guitars and often needs the pole piece for that string to be lowered so it doesn’t overpower the audible output of the other strings.
