Absolutely done with Alnico 8
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ItsaBass
New member
Magnets have no sound/tone in and of themselves. They simply provide a field of a certain strength. That strength combined with the coil design/s either gives you a tone you like, or it doesn't. Any of the common pickup magnet formulations can be OK if the pickup is designed around the strength of that magnet. When you insert a magnet into a pickup, and that pickup was not initially designed around that magnet, sometimes you get something great, and sometimes you get something terrible.
Point being, it doesn't make a lot of sense to write off any one of the common types of pickup magnets across the board, in and of itself. They will produce different sounds with different coils.
I chose A8 as the "pump" for a very low wind unequally wound Gibson sized humbucker that I made. I filled the coils with 40 gauge wire. 6,200 turns between both coils, which is about 3/4 the number of turns on a typical vintage style Fender guitar pickup. The theory was that the extra strength of the A8 would make up for the relatively low number of windings on the coils. The pickup sounds decent to me. It's clear and bright, but not as weak as you'd think.
But putting an A8 bar in a pickup the coils of which were designed around the strength of A2s–A5s might result in too much compression up front for my, and many others', liking. The pickup was not designed around having that much magnetic strength pushing it, so you might get output and frequency effects that don't really sound "good," as an engineer would design them. But if that same engineer had started out with a magnet as strong as an A8 being the case, he/she could have designed ideal coils to work with it in a "pleasing" way.
Point being, it doesn't make a lot of sense to write off any one of the common types of pickup magnets across the board, in and of itself. They will produce different sounds with different coils.
I chose A8 as the "pump" for a very low wind unequally wound Gibson sized humbucker that I made. I filled the coils with 40 gauge wire. 6,200 turns between both coils, which is about 3/4 the number of turns on a typical vintage style Fender guitar pickup. The theory was that the extra strength of the A8 would make up for the relatively low number of windings on the coils. The pickup sounds decent to me. It's clear and bright, but not as weak as you'd think.
But putting an A8 bar in a pickup the coils of which were designed around the strength of A2s–A5s might result in too much compression up front for my, and many others', liking. The pickup was not designed around having that much magnetic strength pushing it, so you might get output and frequency effects that don't really sound "good," as an engineer would design them. But if that same engineer had started out with a magnet as strong as an A8 being the case, he/she could have designed ideal coils to work with it in a "pleasing" way.
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Demanic
PenultimateTone Member
That sounds like what was done with the Alternative 8. I like hot ceramic pickups for percussive metal rhythm. But the Alt8 might possibly be my favorite, beyond even the Distortion, the X2N and the JB.
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Rex_Rocker
Well-known member
I have a question for you guys... that's not really related, but sort of.
Say two different pickups have the same magnet type, but two different winds. Does the magnetic field change on top of the pickup the hotter the wind, or does it depend purely on magnet strength? What I mean is, does a JB have more string pull than a '59B?
Say two different pickups have the same magnet type, but two different winds. Does the magnetic field change on top of the pickup the hotter the wind, or does it depend purely on magnet strength? What I mean is, does a JB have more string pull than a '59B?
RayBarbeeMusic
New member
Lewguitar
New member
This seems right to me. I'm not a scientist but the difference in the sound of my pickups when I do magnet swapping seems to indicate there's more going on than just the strength of the magnet.
ItsaBass
New member
You seem to be responding to something I didn't claim.
I didn't claim that magnets don't affect the way a pickup sounds. They most certainly do.
I am claiming that a certain magnet composition does not sound a certain way with all pickup and coil designs.
In other words, you can't reasonably say things across the board like, "A8 has such and such an e.q." or "A2 is warm."
What you could reasonably say is something along the lines of, "A8 when fully charged has this much power," or, "A8 reacts with such-and-such a coil size and such-and-such a number of windings to alter the tone in such and such a way vs. such and such other magnet type." Or, "A2, when used in a neatly wound Strat coil with 8000 turns on it, will provide a lower peak frequency than the same exact coil with A5 magnets." Or, "Due to the way this coil is designed, one should select an A5 magnet if one wants to make the peak frequency such and such number of Hertz."
But magnets don't "have an e.q." across the board. They react with different pickup designs to create different tonal effects. And you can tailor the specifications of the pickup coils to work within the field created when the magnet type is fixed, to create a wide variety of e.q. results, just as you can tailor the magnet selection to have certain effects when the coil design is fixed.
Point being, one can design pickups to have many different e.q.s with many different magnets. A5 doesn't mean "bright" as a rule. A2 doesn't mean "warm" as a rule. Within the same pickup...yes, speaking only in the relative sense. But not absolutely.
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posite63
New member
I have long noticed this, but never knew how to describe it. Glad to know my ears weren't going crazy.
I ended up pulling all my A8s as well.
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Ronnie_Snow
New member
I have an Polished A8 I ordered from Philadelphia Luthiers and got sent to Australia. In terms of magnetic strength, it is weaker than the stock polished A5 I pulled from a SD humbucker.
Why? I have no idea... A friend has said some mail goes through Xray scanning at customs and that could effect the strength of the magnet. The weaker strength may explain why the one I have in a 59/Custom sounds so good. That SG is my number 1 because of that pickup with that magnet. Before it was good but not amazing.
I had high expectations for the Custom 8 after reading everything on here but that was a massive disappointment. The A8 went from being in a Custom. I changed that to a RCUOA5 and was not still not happy. Last night I swapped it back to the stock polished A5 and I think it's better stock. I think it has a lot to do with the strength of the magnet and also how they were made using quality materials or what not.
I think I prefer the 10-11k range as my hottest humbuckers. More than that I find theres too much of something...
Why? I have no idea... A friend has said some mail goes through Xray scanning at customs and that could effect the strength of the magnet. The weaker strength may explain why the one I have in a 59/Custom sounds so good. That SG is my number 1 because of that pickup with that magnet. Before it was good but not amazing.
I had high expectations for the Custom 8 after reading everything on here but that was a massive disappointment. The A8 went from being in a Custom. I changed that to a RCUOA5 and was not still not happy. Last night I swapped it back to the stock polished A5 and I think it's better stock. I think it has a lot to do with the strength of the magnet and also how they were made using quality materials or what not.
I think I prefer the 10-11k range as my hottest humbuckers. More than that I find theres too much of something...
beaubrummels
Well-known member
From my experience in the studio, ears get tired. Then something new always sounds 'better' ...for a while. Then ears get tired again, and something else sounds 'better.' Now I just take it as a journey, no absolutes, nothing is better, just different, and I'm enjoying what I like for now. Tomorrow may be different.
I agree with this. There are only a few pickups I can handle for a very, very long time and they're often medium to low output pickups.
Ronnie_Snow
New member
Yeah if like waiting for 3 months for postage from Australia along with the high postage prices sure...
gsammo79
New member
Hot pickups are fun to jam at home with, but I find them less useable playing live, for the music I like. I'd love to have a guitar loaded with a dirty fingers or super distortion to crank up and play with. They are more muscle than I would need if I was sitting in with a band, even though i dont gig.
My custom shop creation is badass but it's as hot as I wanna go. I do have a double thick A2 I cant wait to use in a lower wind pickup, like my jazz bridge or an old '59b. Itll be a 2nd guitar project though
My custom shop creation is badass but it's as hot as I wanna go. I do have a double thick A2 I cant wait to use in a lower wind pickup, like my jazz bridge or an old '59b. Itll be a 2nd guitar project though
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