pickups that sound different after a short ime from new

[freefrog]

Delayed add - BTW, the subjective experience evoked in this topic involved Tele BRIDGE pickups, whose magnetic field is not that simple... Not only it's shaped by the plate under the coil itself (https://dylantalkstone.com/blogs/dyl...the-difference) , but it's also conveyed in a specific way by the bridge plate around it:

https://ironstone-guitar-pickups.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Stratocaster-Telecaster-Pickup-Comparison-1.jpg

Generally, such components are took in account only to talk about Foucault currents. But depending on their composition, they might interact in some way with some "residual magnetism" due to a previous pickup, a bit like adding steel to a magnet increases its flux - at least if the Tele bridge plate involved is magnetic, as it happens with such parts.

No time to dig further right now... but if something else comes to my mind once the dust will have... "settled" down a bit more, I'll share my thoughts. ;-)

[Wound_Up]

Did you change the strings or were they the same than with the previous pickup(s)?

in both cases, there's something to think about in these pages and quotes:

1) https://travelingguitarist.com/are-g...ings-magnetic/

2) Seth Lover talking to Seymour:



Source: https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/l...ith-seth-lover

Knowing that single coils with rod magnet poles have a much stronger magnetic field than humbuckers, draw your own conclusions. ;-)

This right here is related to what I've heard about "stratitis". People like to bring it up any time somebody plays a Strat but my research suggests it's only the alnico poled pickups that cause Stratitis. Because the pickups with steel poles and bar magnets dont produce the magnetism that the alnico poles do. Somebody else much smarter than me came to this conclusion but I forget who it was.

[freefrog]

Yes. I didn't mention Statitis above but it came to my mind too, since it illustrates how strong the flux can be with Fender style single coils.

Below is an interesting article about it (containing the following words : "The string usually contains either Fe or Ni, and so is ferromagnetic. The region of the string nearest the magnet thereby acquires its own magnetization and creates its own magnetic field").

https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/article/144/5/EL460/646302/Natural-frequency-splitting-of-a-guitar-string

Funny (?) side note : for decades, I use a same screw driver to assemble and set pickups because it has a handle with a square section, making turns count easier. Pretty sure the metallic part of this tool was not magnetized initially. But having been close to countless magnetic transducers, it behaves now like a permanent magnet - and powerful enough to attract several Strat plate screws at once... :-P

[Wound_Up]

Please don't remove the neck when you do a pickup swap, that's how you strip the holes in the neck pocket.

Wait what? The holes in all of my neck pockets are smooth. The screws screw into the neck, not the neck pocket. In fact, many people like to drill their body holes oversized so the screws fall through easily and so the wood can't contract around the screw and crack, IIRC.

You strip screw holes by overtightening normally. Not by removing them and reinstalling them. Especially not in a wood like Rock/Hard Maple. Basswood? Sure. But not a maple neck.

It's people like you that are the reason so many folks are afraid to work on their own guitars. You fill them with misinformation and scare tactics. Come on, man.

I replaced my first nut 6 months into owning my first guitar while people told me "you need to wait another x months before you try that", as if learning to play better would somehow help me replace a nut. Did a great job the first time, too.

All the while, we have people on YouTube that hundreds of thousands of people trust telling them "it takes YEARS to master replacing a nut and getting it right" & "if you cut the slots too low, there's nothing you can do to fix it and you have to start over with a new nut". It doesn't take that long for everyone and you don't have to start over with a new nut technically. More scare tactics, IMHO, that do nothing but keep people from attempting to work on their own stuff.

[ArtieToo]

What is happening is you have a magnetic field that is moving back and forth across the coil. And when you move a magnetic field back and forth across the coil you induce voltage. If you move the field up and down it wouldn’t induce any voltage. It’s the motion back and forth across the pickup that does it.

It's kinda funny that Seth himself, got this wrong. Up and down, or closer and farther away, is what causes the voltage. Not back and forth. This is really simple to test if you have access to an o'scope. But you can still do it with a meter. Just put it on a low DC volts setting. Bring a screwdriver up against the poles, then yank it away. You'll see a pretty good voltage spike. Move the screwdriver back and forth, and you'll see little to no voltage. Even easier to see on a scope.

You strip screw holes by overtightening normally. Not by removing them and reinstalling them. Especially not in a wood like Rock/Hard Maple. Basswood? Sure. But not a maple neck.

I agree. I routinely remove bolt-on necks for pup changes and such. Never had a problem. But there is a "trick" so to speak. Whenever you're putting a screw back into already cut threads, you turn the screw backwards, 'til you hear it "click", then go forward. This aligns the screw with the existing threads. It's most important with wood and plastic, but works equally well with chassis screws, spark plugs, and mayonnaise jar lids.

[GuitarDoc]

Please don't remove the neck when you do a pickup swap, that's how you strip the holes in the neck pocket.

No.