Lipstick Pickups
Posted in: Gadgets, Related topic by weddingcometrue | February 17th 2010 | no comments
When hearing about lipstick pickups the first thing that pops into the minds of first people (except for musicians or those who know a little bit about guitars) is an image that is related to lipstick. The truth is that lipstick pickups have nothing to do with those lipsticks.
The term lipstick is used in many expressions that have nothing to do with makeup. This is because most of the lipstick tubes have such shapes and sizes that can be used for many other purposes, such as electric equipment or instruments. In other situations it can be used to express an idea that doesn’t necessarily have to do anything with lipstick, but the term lipstick makes an allusion to the thought that has to be expressed.
The term lipstick can be used as part of a name or title, like the movie title ‘Lipstick on Your Collar’. Lipstick doesn’t play a major role in the movie but it helps to indicate the plot of the movie. The term lipstick is used in rhetorical expressions as well having the meaning of something that alternates the reality, for example ‘Lipstick on a pig’. This shows the ability of a language to become more sophisticated and rich by using the same expressions with different meanings, creating a whole new idea about the thing in question, in our case, lipstick.
The word ‘pickup’ indicates that the expression refers to something else than real lipstick, so the meaning isn’t as vague as it seems to be the first time somebody hears the expression. A lipstick tube is a form of guitar pickup having all its electronics in a metal tube. Because of the size and shape of the tube, it resembles a lipstick tube. In the beginning they were manufactured using lipstick tubes that were a surplus, so the name is quite logical. The pickups produced today aren’t made of lipstick tubes anymore, but rather tubes especially fabricated for this purpose.
This kind of pickup was first introduced on a line of electric guitars by the company called Danelectro. The thing that makes these pickups different is that its coil is wrapped around a magnet and then wrapped in a cellophane-tape then inserted into the metal tube. Before this technique was invented, plastic or fiber bobbin was used to form the coil. In the case of vintage Danelectro guitars, the pickups were mounted using brackets that could be adjusted for height by screws.
These pickups used to be quite wide, 3.22 inches. The sound of these pickups can be describes as ‘soft’. Dabelectro wired the pickups in series rather than parallel, and this may be the cause of the more unusual sound that it produces. The electronic part of the guitar was a source of inspiration for an American punk band, having the name ‘Lipstick Pickups’. They have singles, splits and two albums, along with several compilations. Lipstick pickups might mean both the guitar pickup and the band, but most of the times it is used for the electronic equipment.