I just started messing with magnets, super easy mod once you get the covers off. I put an alnico 8 in a paf to beef it up a touch and an alnico 4 in the neck to remove the mud Always keen to see more videos on magnet swaps
Fascinating information -I only played once with winding as did not have access to bobbins - 50 some years ago I wound a low DCR low impedance pickup on a single coil bobbin and had a tiny matching transforrmer from a mic withresultant sounds was very "hi-fi" and enugh voltage to work with tube amps of that dfay. - maybe usable for some bass setups.. No active stages nor battery needed - not sure of hum pickup concerns from the transformer
High output pups do have their place, but players can often get buy with lower output pups because of how powerful amps are these days. The amp makes much more of a difference. The pickup deals with how your guitar interacts with your amp. That being said, I do like the Tonerider Octane and Duncan Alternative 8 for Alnico 8 pups. I've never replaced a magnet before. I'm just afraid of messing up a pickup. Great video.
Swapping magnets is easy with most humbuckers. If you don't like how the new magnet sounds, you can swap back to the original. With pickups that have magnetized pole pieces it's usually easier to replace the whole pickup unless you can manipulate the gauss levels.
This is good info. Thanks! I've played around with magnets in my pickups over the years. Something else fun is to play with the polarity. You can get some really weird sounds out of a guitar doing that.
not to mention the amount of 9v batteries you go throw which 99% of the time end up as polluting landfill. Had exactly the same problem as mentioned in the video, which was a very dark sounding ALNICO 5 humbucker. Ended up replacing them with a set of pickups that I modified myself. Basically all I did was replace the ceramic magnet in an old pair of Epiphone PU's with a fully charged ALNICO 5 magnet. Did the trick, but I think the amp still has a lot to do with it. A VOX is quite warm to begin with, but the Marshall or Mesa Boogie seems to be right in that sweet spot.
Great information! I have a couple of guitars with Seymour Duncan SH-6 pickups, (ceramic), and find them to be a bit "harsh", (High treble). I may try to "soften" the tone by using an Alnico VIII magnet.
I feel the same...the SD Distortion just sounds like nails on the chalkbord to me. Lower windings on ceramic? The Duncan Custom, Dimarzio Super Distortion? I know many of the stock Ibanez pickups are ceramic.
Great video Chris always helpful, I have a question I have a lot of magnetic screwdrivers in such yeah it's such is it OK to use that when repairing and taking when repairing in taking out pickups out of your guitar, Thank you for your time and answering my question.
Even screwdrivers that haven't been magnetized can become magnetized when working on pickups. That being said, you only need to be concerned if your magnetic screwdrivers have a stronger pull than your pickups. If that's the case, which is unlikely, you could alter the strength of your pickup's magnet and even flip its polarity.
Thank you for doing this video. Experimenting with magnets and Pickups was on my to-do list. One thing I wanted to experiment with is to have single coil pickups with unmagnetized pole pieces and swapping the bar magnet on the bottom to see how it affects tone. So I'm encouraged after hearing what you had to say. Do you also have a cheap source for these single coil pickups that have unmagnetized pole pieces? I find them very hard to come by. Also what is the easiest way to remove the existing bar magnet from a single coil without damaging the magnet. I understand heat can damage the magnet. Thanks again.
The link in the description offers ceramic and Alnico magnetized or non-magnetized. I usually just pry them off with an X-Acto knife and a pair of pliers.
Hi, thanks for this video. I have 2 alnico 8 magnets and one is longer than the other, so more mass. Question : Does the size matter? 😊 does it change the tone? Cheers
The way I see it you can always add gain with pedals etc. or take it out with the volume knob. The pickup is your starting point, or default setting. For me it is about finding an appropriate range of tones I can achieve with all my gear and the specific tone where I spend most of my time.
Neos are like 4 times as powerful as ceramic and Alnico 8. They sound way too bright and the magnetic pull kills sustain. To make them work requires more effort than it's worth. I know, because I tried.
@@HighlineGuitars The magnet pull is weakening exponentially from the distance to the object - just lower the pickup. In general, it would be nice to see an experiment with neo-magnets "killing" sustain. This has not received any scientific confirmation.
@@iridios6127 I tried all kind of magnets and can confirm that usual neodymium magnets are much too strong. You gain nothing if you go beyond ceramic, but loose tone and playability. Fact is, I finally used 4 very small neodymium magnets for a Rickenbacker bass pickup and that did the trick…
The SLUGS aren't polarized, magnetized or have a gauss? the Slugs weaken and lessen the magnetism and gauss because the magnet is on the bottom of the pickup and the Slugs are what is transferring to the bottom magnet which you get less gauss and less of a magnetic field because of the Slugs?
In a single coil with a bar magnet on the bottom, the slugs are polarized, magnetized, and therefore can be measured for gauss. How much depends on the slug's composition.
@@HighlineGuitars Can you make a video comparing the gauss measurement of a single coil Slugs as the alnico 5 magnets VS compared to a Single coil Slugs with a Alnico 5 Bar magnet on the bottom, because the gauss is going to measure differently and the response of the guitar pickup. When Slugs are sitting on top of an Alnico 5 bar magnet there is an "air gap" not bolded together so the separation causes what types of problems with the magnetic field?
When you're soldering guitar electronics, what temperatures do you usually run your iron? I've struggled to find optimal temperature to attain shiny, solid solder joints.
see if you can get some sort of soldering flux for electronics (not the copper pipe soldering stuff), it doesn't need to be anything exotic. regular resin flux is perfect. you'll find soldering much-much easier since the flux will both de-oxidize the metal surfaces and condition the solder to flow easier. if the tip of your iron is heavy enough, anything from 350F and up... if it's a rather lighter tip (less thermal mass) you'll need more heat to solder on the pots' covers for example. ps: any movement of the joint as the solder solidifies will make a dull looking, cold joint. also, lead free solder doesn't have the regular shiny sparkle..older left on the tip of the iron long enough will burn off the flux that comes w/ the solder and become this melted metal that doesn't like to flow)
Try to build the pickup.. i get right of DCR.. But How to get the right inductance what i want .. i see the texas for tele had 9 neck , 10 brigde.. sound awesome because the texas had a 2.75 inductance
Sorry, I don’t really understand the video because I’m not English speaker native… I have a question: What do you think is better between Seymour Duncan SH5 Custom (Ceramic) and SH15 Alternative 8 (Alnico 8)? For powerful, tight, brilliant, shiny, emotional sound? Alternative 8 is bad for clean sound?
Hey, i think i can help you with this :) I really think brilliant and emotional are not good words to describe pickups but i can help you with the other characteristics you’re searching for. I’m guessing that by powerful you mean a pickup that will drive an amp but the problem with sheer power is that powerful magnets tend to compress the sound so you don’t get as much sensitivity when playing altough you get a tight low end and bright top end. Alnico 2 is just fine as long as you dont drive it too much and lose the tight low end. Alnico 4 is almost always good but the sound is not very special because it has close to even frequency response. Alnico 5 is the most commonly used pickup at the moment because it is exactly what modern players look for, it has tight low end, bright top end and detailed mid response. Alnico 8 is like a substitute for a ceramic magnet and is not very common but can also be used if a ceramic magnet is overkill for the duty. Though i must say that picking a pickup by its magnet is not the perfect way to go. Their resistance among their type of pickups effects the “powerful” keyword that you’ve described. If you’re a metal player i’d suggest alnico 5, alnico 8 or a ceramic pickup. If you’re a rock player I’d suggest sticking with alnico 2, alnico 4 or an alnico 5 pickup. If i had to pick for you, I’d go for an Alnico 4 for my neck pickup and an Alnico 5 for my bridge pickup. The first set you buy doesn’t define you, try them and look for what’s missing in your sound.
One of these days I plan to do a video on why RUclips audio samples are so bad. I've been holding off in hopes that the technology will improve. So far it hasn't.
@@HighlineGuitars In a former life I worked in broadcasting, teaching engineers how digital radio worked including the bit-rate reduction techniques and a bit of 'psychoacoustics'. Any future developments will likely have more to do with further reducing the bit rate than increasing the quality. I learned back then that there is no such thing as a senior manager (ie the person making the decisions) that appreciates technical quality.
AlNiCo 8 is very ceramic sounding when used in a humbucker. Hot but quite poor sound. I replaced ceramics in my Squier with AlNiCo 5 and a miracle happened - a glass appeared somewhere!😁Thus, the claim that a ceramic magnet helps to restore treble is incorrect. A magnet too powerful dampens the finer vibrations of the strings. I recommend watching an objective comparison of magnets from Darrell Braun Guitar channel!
I just started messing with magnets, super easy mod once you get the covers off. I put an alnico 8 in a paf to beef it up a touch and an alnico 4 in the neck to remove the mud
Always keen to see more videos on magnet swaps
Just scored my first A8 pickup...as well as an A4 set...along that same line of thought!
Fascinating information -I only played once with winding as did not have access to bobbins - 50 some years ago I wound a low DCR low impedance pickup on a single coil bobbin and had a tiny matching transforrmer from a mic withresultant sounds was very "hi-fi" and enugh voltage to work with tube amps of that dfay. - maybe usable for some bass setups.. No active stages nor battery needed - not sure of hum pickup concerns from the transformer
High output pups do have their place, but players can often get buy with lower output pups because of how powerful amps are these days. The amp makes much more of a difference. The pickup deals with how your guitar interacts with your amp. That being said, I do like the Tonerider Octane and Duncan Alternative 8 for Alnico 8 pups. I've never replaced a magnet before. I'm just afraid of messing up a pickup. Great video.
Swapping magnets is easy with most humbuckers. If you don't like how the new magnet sounds, you can swap back to the original. With pickups that have magnetized pole pieces it's usually easier to replace the whole pickup unless you can manipulate the gauss levels.
It is not as difficult as it seems: guitarism-tr.blogspot.com/2016/07/humbuckermagnetswapping.html
Angus...I just nabbed a Tonerider Octane and am looking forward to giving it a try!
This is good info. Thanks! I've played around with magnets in my pickups over the years. Something else fun is to play with the polarity. You can get some really weird sounds out of a guitar doing that.
I'm just starting to look into that. Fun stuff you say? 👍🏼
not to mention the amount of 9v batteries you go throw which 99% of the time end up as polluting landfill.
Had exactly the same problem as mentioned in the video, which was a very dark sounding ALNICO 5 humbucker. Ended up replacing them with a set of pickups that I modified myself. Basically all I did was replace the ceramic magnet in an old pair of Epiphone PU's with a fully charged ALNICO 5 magnet. Did the trick, but I think the amp still has a lot to do with it. A VOX is quite warm to begin with, but the Marshall or Mesa Boogie seems to be right in that sweet spot.
Great information! I have a couple of guitars with Seymour Duncan SH-6 pickups, (ceramic), and find them to be a bit "harsh", (High treble). I may try to "soften" the tone by using an Alnico VIII magnet.
I feel the same...the SD Distortion just sounds like nails on the chalkbord to me. Lower windings on ceramic? The Duncan Custom, Dimarzio Super Distortion? I know many of the stock Ibanez pickups are ceramic.
Seymour Duncan's Parallel Axis Distortion humbuckers are their highest output passive pickups with a DCR rating of 21.2K.
Has anyone changed the magnets on the Dirty Fingers pickups? What did you do and what was the results? Thanks
Very informative. Thanks for the explanation.
You are Professor! Thanks! 👍
Thanks for the great info!
Thanks! what are closest available pickups to Ibanez super 70 ? (alnico 8 I think)
Try Matsumoku's MMK45, which was stock in Aria Pro ll's Knight Warriors of the mid-80s.
Also used in Westones.
Very interesting! Thanks!
Great video Chris always helpful, I have a question I have a lot of magnetic screwdrivers in such yeah it's such is it OK to use that when repairing and taking when repairing in taking out pickups out of your guitar, Thank you for your time and answering my question.
Even screwdrivers that haven't been magnetized can become magnetized when working on pickups. That being said, you only need to be concerned if your magnetic screwdrivers have a stronger pull than your pickups. If that's the case, which is unlikely, you could alter the strength of your pickup's magnet and even flip its polarity.
@@HighlineGuitars Thank you so much
Great info here
Thank you for doing this video. Experimenting with magnets and Pickups was on my to-do list. One thing I wanted to experiment with is to have single coil pickups with unmagnetized pole pieces and swapping the bar magnet on the bottom to see how it affects tone. So I'm encouraged after hearing what you had to say. Do you also have a cheap source for these single coil pickups that have unmagnetized pole pieces? I find them very hard to come by. Also what is the easiest way to remove the existing bar magnet from a single coil without damaging the magnet. I understand heat can damage the magnet. Thanks again.
The link in the description offers ceramic and Alnico magnetized or non-magnetized. I usually just pry them off with an X-Acto knife and a pair of pliers.
Hi, thanks for this video. I have 2 alnico 8 magnets and one is longer than the other, so more mass. Question : Does the size matter? 😊 does it change the tone? Cheers
Yes, size matters and yes it will change the tone.
I didn't even know there were Alnico magnets higher than 5 LOL...I guess I'm a low output kinda guy.
The way I see it you can always add gain with pedals etc. or take it out with the volume knob. The pickup is your starting point, or default setting. For me it is about finding an appropriate range of tones I can achieve with all my gear and the specific tone where I spend most of my time.
Great video!
Thanks for watching!
i have some ibanez super 70s ceramic pickups in 1984 ibanez i have and they are a little bright. Do you think the alnico 8s would tame it a bit?
It might. I'd have an A8 and an A5 handy to see which sounds to your liking.
Great work. How do neodymium magnets compare? I know a winder in North Wales using them to good use.
Neos are like 4 times as powerful as ceramic and Alnico 8. They sound way too bright and the magnetic pull kills sustain. To make them work requires more effort than it's worth. I know, because I tried.
@@HighlineGuitars
The magnet pull is weakening exponentially from the distance to the object - just lower the pickup.
In general, it would be nice to see an experiment with neo-magnets "killing" sustain.
This has not received any scientific confirmation.
@@iridios6127 I tried all kind of magnets and can confirm that usual neodymium magnets are much too strong. You gain nothing if you go beyond ceramic, but loose tone and playability. Fact is, I finally used 4 very small neodymium magnets for a Rickenbacker bass pickup and that did the trick…
The SLUGS aren't polarized, magnetized or have a gauss? the Slugs weaken and lessen the magnetism and gauss because the magnet is on the bottom of the pickup and the Slugs are what is transferring to the bottom magnet which you get less gauss and less of a magnetic field because of the Slugs?
In a single coil with a bar magnet on the bottom, the slugs are polarized, magnetized, and therefore can be measured for gauss. How much depends on the slug's composition.
@@HighlineGuitars Can you make a video comparing the gauss measurement of a single coil Slugs as the alnico 5 magnets VS compared to a Single coil Slugs with a Alnico 5 Bar magnet on the bottom, because the gauss is going to measure differently and the response of the guitar pickup. When Slugs are sitting on top of an Alnico 5 bar magnet there is an "air gap" not bolded together so the separation causes what types of problems with the magnetic field?
@@waynegram8907 The variables would make such a test unreliable.
Hey love the show. I'm wiring ceramic pickups in my DIY firebird. Very high out put but I'm wondering what pots n caps to use
Any thoughts?
They’re cheap so buy a bunch of different values and test to see what combinations appeal to you.
When you're soldering guitar electronics, what temperatures do you usually run your iron? I've struggled to find optimal temperature to attain shiny, solid solder joints.
Around 400°F
see if you can get some sort of soldering flux for electronics (not the copper pipe soldering stuff), it doesn't need to be anything exotic. regular resin flux is perfect.
you'll find soldering much-much easier since the flux will both de-oxidize the metal surfaces and condition the solder to flow easier.
if the tip of your iron is heavy enough, anything from 350F and up... if it's a rather lighter tip (less thermal mass) you'll need more heat to solder on the pots' covers for example.
ps: any movement of the joint as the solder solidifies will make a dull looking, cold joint. also, lead free solder doesn't have the regular shiny sparkle..older left on the tip of the iron long enough will burn off the flux that comes w/ the solder and become this melted metal that doesn't like to flow)
Try to build the pickup.. i get right of DCR.. But How to get the right inductance what i want .. i see the texas for tele had 9 neck , 10 brigde.. sound awesome because the texas had a 2.75 inductance
Inductance is determined by the iron content of the magnets and pole pieces. Try some different magnets to see how they affect the inductance.
Sorry, I don’t really understand the video because I’m not English speaker native…
I have a question: What do you think is better between Seymour Duncan SH5 Custom (Ceramic) and SH15 Alternative 8 (Alnico 8)?
For powerful, tight, brilliant, shiny, emotional sound?
Alternative 8 is bad for clean sound?
Hey, i think i can help you with this :) I really think brilliant and emotional are not good words to describe pickups but i can help you with the other characteristics you’re searching for. I’m guessing that by powerful you mean a pickup that will drive an amp but the problem with sheer power is that powerful magnets tend to compress the sound so you don’t get as much sensitivity when playing altough you get a tight low end and bright top end. Alnico 2 is just fine as long as you dont drive it too much and lose the tight low end. Alnico 4 is almost always good but the sound is not very special because it has close to even frequency response. Alnico 5 is the most commonly used pickup at the moment because it is exactly what modern players look for, it has tight low end, bright top end and detailed mid response. Alnico 8 is like a substitute for a ceramic magnet and is not very common but can also be used if a ceramic magnet is overkill for the duty. Though i must say that picking a pickup by its magnet is not the perfect way to go. Their resistance among their type of pickups effects the “powerful” keyword that you’ve described.
If you’re a metal player i’d suggest alnico 5, alnico 8 or a ceramic pickup. If you’re a rock player I’d suggest sticking with alnico 2, alnico 4 or an alnico 5 pickup.
If i had to pick for you, I’d go for an Alnico 4 for my neck pickup and an Alnico 5 for my bridge pickup. The first set you buy doesn’t define you, try them and look for what’s missing in your sound.
I expected to listen to some ceramic vs. a8 samples in the end of the video 🙄
One of these days I plan to do a video on why RUclips audio samples are so bad. I've been holding off in hopes that the technology will improve. So far it hasn't.
@@HighlineGuitars agreed tbh
Its hard to judge sound without being there in person or hearing it from a decent source
@@HighlineGuitars In a former life I worked in broadcasting, teaching engineers how digital radio worked including the bit-rate reduction techniques and a bit of 'psychoacoustics'. Any future developments will likely have more to do with further reducing the bit rate than increasing the quality. I learned back then that there is no such thing as a senior manager (ie the person making the decisions) that appreciates technical quality.
AlNiCo II sounds better than pretty much anything else. Smoother and rounder.
Which works well for "smoother and rounder" music...
AlNiCo 8 is very ceramic sounding when used in a humbucker. Hot but quite poor sound. I replaced ceramics in my Squier with AlNiCo 5 and a miracle happened - a glass appeared somewhere!😁Thus, the claim that a ceramic magnet helps to restore treble is incorrect. A magnet too powerful dampens the finer vibrations of the strings. I recommend watching an objective comparison of magnets from Darrell Braun Guitar channel!
You are wrong.