By now, pretty much every guitar player has heard the rumor that humbuckers sound better with their nickel-plated covers removed. Players like Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton have at one time or another endorsed this practice. Before you start de-nuding your pickups, consider a few things:
- If a humbucker-equipped guitar doesn’t sound amazing with its cover on, it’s not going to do much if you yank the cover off.
- If your instrument is under warranty, removing the covers will likely void that warranty.
- Most modern humbuckers come “wax potted” to cut down on microphonic feedback, which means there’s a thin layer of wax between the coils and the covers, making the removal of the covers next to impossible.
- If you have a favorite guitar that’s not a collector’s item, you can always purchase a set of coverless pickups, then swap them out with the old ones. This is best left done to qualified service techs (like we have here at Sweetwater), but if the guitar is out of warranty, feel free to give it a shot, as long as you’re comfortable around a soldering iron.
Today most manufacturers offer coverless pickups as an option, though most have some models in their line that come standard with covers in place. If it’s just more high end that you’re after, consider a guitar with single-coil pickups or P-90 “soapbars.”
In most cases, it’s best that we leave our pickup covers alone. Generally, the manufacturer knows best, so if the guitar would sound better without covers, they wouldn’t have put them on in the first place.