Patent ID: 8664507

Claim:
A pickup for a stringed musical instrument comprising; a. at least one coil; b. at least one pole piece disposed within the at least one coil, wherein the pole piece consists essentially of a magnetically permeable material other than an AlNiCo alloy, and the magnetically permeable material has an inductive response alpha (α) between about 0.42 and about 0.5 defined as: α=−log L r-rel (ω r-rel ), where L r-rel is the inductance of a reference coil as measured with the magnetically permeable material disposed therein divided by the inductance of the reference coil as measured without the magnetically permeable material disposed therein and where ω r-rel is the resonant frequency of the reference coil as measured with the magnetically permeable material disposed therein divided by the resonant frequency of the reference coil as measured without the magnetically permeable material disposed therein; and c. at least one magnet.