How Pickups Affect Tone in an Electric Bağlama

Pickups come in many brands and models on the market. Most of these brands make products for electric guitars and basses, but there are also Turkish-made brands and models made specifically for the electric bağlama, such as Necarman and Sedef.

Put simply, pickups are circuit components that sense the electromagnetic effect created by the vibration of the strings and convert it into changing electrical signals. Contrary to what many people think, the sound the strings produce has no effect on the pickups. What matters is the vibrating motion of the strings.

The picture below shows, in simple form, how a pickup is built:

There are many alternatives when it comes to pickups, but electric sazes generally use dual-coil, noise-cancelling pickups (humbuckers). Single-coil pickups were used in electric sazes at first, but because of their tonal shortcomings they are no longer preferred.

Pickups are one of the most important elements that directly shape the tonal character of an electric bağlama. There are many options for the pickups used in electric sazes. Both pickups can be the same brand and model, or you can choose a combination of different brands and models.

However, picking pickups at random can make it hard to get the tone you want. For example, using a pickup designed and built for bass guitar in an electric bağlama may prevent you from getting the desired tone. So it is more sensible to use brands and models that are widely tested and well accepted on the market. Of course, it makes far more sense to use products from Turkish brands that have spent many years on research and development for electric bağlamas.

Because of differences in physical construction, frequency range, string characteristics and tuning, not every pickup designed for electric guitars will work at full efficiency in an electric bağlama or give the desired tone.

Pickups made in Türkiye, on the other hand, go through all their R&D stages for electric bağlamas. That means they work much more efficiently and can deliver sound characteristics better suited to the instrument's distinctive tone.

Another issue is the quality and specification of the materials pickups are made from, especially the coil wire, magnets and connecting cables. Cheap pickups made in the Far East and China use lower-quality materials, so their lifespan is shorter, it is harder to get the desired tone, and mismatches can appear between them and the electronic circuits and amps.

Another important issue is the physical construction of the pickups. In general, the most common types on the market are rod pickups, which use a single metal pole piece, and dot pickups, which use 6-piece screw-type metal pole pieces. Dot pickups are designed around the string spacing of 6-string electric guitars, with one metal pole piece for each string. When they are used in an electric bağlama, the strings do not line up directly with the pole pieces, because the bağlama's string spacing differs from a guitar's. This is why some musicians often complain that the bottom string sounds very clean and nice, but the middle string sounds dull and muffled. Rod-type pickups have far fewer of these problems.

What is described here about pickups is simply a list of ideal conditions. However, tone is also directly tied to the musician's personal taste. Some musicians may use pickups in less than ideal conditions and love their tone, while others may use the most ideal pickups and not like their tone.

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Electronic Connections and Circuits in an Electric Bağlama