InbredJunk
New member
How many of you all use them? What genre of music do you play mainly? What do you like, and what would you change about them?
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Alnico II Pro
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vinnie1971
New member
Re: Alnico II Pro
My favourite magnets are ALNICO 2. Blues, classic rock, rockabilly. I like the spongy bass, the pronounced upper mids. The clear rounded rather than shrill trebles.
There is nothing I would change.
I have several with Alnico 5 but ALNICO 2 wins nearly all the time for what I play.
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My favourite magnets are ALNICO 2. Blues, classic rock, rockabilly. I like the spongy bass, the pronounced upper mids. The clear rounded rather than shrill trebles.
There is nothing I would change.
I have several with Alnico 5 but ALNICO 2 wins nearly all the time for what I play.
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bearded madman
New member
Re: Alnico II Pro
Nice pickups. Have one in the neck of my explorer and another in the bridge of an Ibanez SZ. Both guitars are tuned to C# and sometimes drop B mostly play heavier stuff with some blues thrown in, lately more stoner/sludgy, Sabbathy stuff than anything. The neck is nice and fat and has a good clean sound. The bridge has a nice bass and pretty fat highs sounded really good playing some stuff from Down's Nola album earlier but I think it sounds better through my Blackstar ht5 than it does my Mesa 50 cal+.
Nice pickups. Have one in the neck of my explorer and another in the bridge of an Ibanez SZ. Both guitars are tuned to C# and sometimes drop B mostly play heavier stuff with some blues thrown in, lately more stoner/sludgy, Sabbathy stuff than anything. The neck is nice and fat and has a good clean sound. The bridge has a nice bass and pretty fat highs sounded really good playing some stuff from Down's Nola album earlier but I think it sounds better through my Blackstar ht5 than it does my Mesa 50 cal+.
vinnie1971
New member
Alnico II Pro
APH1s are perhaps my favourite humbuckers they have that classic blues tone - BB King, Albert King, Allman Brothers, in fact all the vintage blues tones I can think of. And are awesome for classic rock giving a thick creamy driven tone with pronounced upper mids with a honk very similar to pearly gates.
They do pinched harmonics really well too.
Very good for playing ZZ Top!
- I was hankering after pearly gates, but I think they would have been too bright for the guitar I I put the APH1s in. Even they are still bright in this guitar.
They split well using 4.7k resistors and out of phase is good to get the Peter Green / Gary Moore tones.
I love them!
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APH1s are perhaps my favourite humbuckers they have that classic blues tone - BB King, Albert King, Allman Brothers, in fact all the vintage blues tones I can think of. And are awesome for classic rock giving a thick creamy driven tone with pronounced upper mids with a honk very similar to pearly gates.
They do pinched harmonics really well too.
Very good for playing ZZ Top!
- I was hankering after pearly gates, but I think they would have been too bright for the guitar I I put the APH1s in. Even they are still bright in this guitar.
They split well using 4.7k resistors and out of phase is good to get the Peter Green / Gary Moore tones.
I love them!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Last edited:
Davii
New member
Last edited:
Artie
Peaveyologist
Re: Alnico II Pro
Ditto. Now that I have the Slash set, I rarely pick up the AII Pro set. They just have that something extra.
Ditto. Now that I have the Slash set, I rarely pick up the AII Pro set. They just have that something extra.
Aceman
I am your doctor of love!
Re: Alnico II Pro
I have not had them for a long time, but:
How many of you all use them?
- I have had the set, the bridge, and the neck all in Les Pauls at some point
What genre of music do you play mainly?
- I don't "mainly" play anything. But most likely metal, classic rock, rock, blues
What do you like,
- I love the round highs. I love the overall even tone. I really like the not-quite-thick of the bass/mids.
and what would you change about them?
- I'd make the highs just a bit more cutting. I guess that's why I prefer the Pearly Gates set. That's what PG's really bring to the game for the A2 magnet at the high end. PG's are not sharp, but they really get through because of that.
A2P's are great pickups for any style really, just a matter of amp and guitar.
Metal? Well, I think Slash showed what A2P's and a Marshall can do.
Rock? Turn that Marshall down a bit, and there you go.
Blues? Easy enough. Not cutting/stinging Chicago stuff. But some fat BB style licks, any day!
Jazz? - A2P's are almost built for this. 335, clean fender, they will take the edge right off and be fat and full.
And don't forget the benefits they can have based purely on the guitar; The can fatten the brightest of bridges pretty well.
Great combos:
A2Pn and PGb = maximum range from neck to bridge tones and a cool middle balanced sound
PGn and A2B = super balanced with fat pup in thin spot and brighter pup in dark spot, and they still have that A2 magnet mojo together
A2Pn and 59b = Similar to the PG, but A2P really takes the sharp off of the 59 for cool rhythm in both on.
I have not had them for a long time, but:
How many of you all use them?
- I have had the set, the bridge, and the neck all in Les Pauls at some point
What genre of music do you play mainly?
- I don't "mainly" play anything. But most likely metal, classic rock, rock, blues
What do you like,
- I love the round highs. I love the overall even tone. I really like the not-quite-thick of the bass/mids.
and what would you change about them?
- I'd make the highs just a bit more cutting. I guess that's why I prefer the Pearly Gates set. That's what PG's really bring to the game for the A2 magnet at the high end. PG's are not sharp, but they really get through because of that.
A2P's are great pickups for any style really, just a matter of amp and guitar.
Metal? Well, I think Slash showed what A2P's and a Marshall can do.
Rock? Turn that Marshall down a bit, and there you go.
Blues? Easy enough. Not cutting/stinging Chicago stuff. But some fat BB style licks, any day!
Jazz? - A2P's are almost built for this. 335, clean fender, they will take the edge right off and be fat and full.
And don't forget the benefits they can have based purely on the guitar; The can fatten the brightest of bridges pretty well.
Great combos:
A2Pn and PGb = maximum range from neck to bridge tones and a cool middle balanced sound
PGn and A2B = super balanced with fat pup in thin spot and brighter pup in dark spot, and they still have that A2 magnet mojo together
A2Pn and 59b = Similar to the PG, but A2P really takes the sharp off of the 59 for cool rhythm in both on.
vinnie1971
New member
Re: Alnico II Pro
I was torn between theses and PG.
These are my favourite pickups fit my style of playing and I like them best with my fender amp. In my guitar, there's plenty of high end hence I am glad I went with these.
It's returned my old faithful which I have owned for 30 years to it's rightful place as my favourite guitar [emoji4]
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I was torn between theses and PG.
These are my favourite pickups fit my style of playing and I like them best with my fender amp. In my guitar, there's plenty of high end hence I am glad I went with these.
It's returned my old faithful which I have owned for 30 years to it's rightful place as my favourite guitar [emoji4]
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vinnie1971
New member
Alnico II Pro
Instead of a wire to ground the inactive coil, use a 4.7k resistor to ground, in series with the grounded coil. This turns the coil split into a coil shunt so that the resistor allows some of the signal to remain from the cut coil so you still get a coil split but not complete- this fattens the tone so it's not all thin and wiry and sounds more more like a true single coil than a standard coil split.
Checking with a multimeter confirms that the coil split is greater than half of the DCR of the humbucker in humbucking mode, but it does not add 4.7k to the DCR. Try it, it's something PRS use in theirs, but I think they use 2k, which for me still sounds too thin.
The exception to this for me is once humbuckers ( as a rule of thumb) are over 11k DCR. I have one set meeting thus criteria and they sound ok just splitting without a resistor, but I do have them splitting via a potentiometer from their respective push pulls for variable split so I can darken the split on demand or make the humbuckers a bit brighter sounding. I find eventgese fully split a bit thin and my variable split set to 1 or 2 on the potentiometer to be the sweet spot.
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Instead of a wire to ground the inactive coil, use a 4.7k resistor to ground, in series with the grounded coil. This turns the coil split into a coil shunt so that the resistor allows some of the signal to remain from the cut coil so you still get a coil split but not complete- this fattens the tone so it's not all thin and wiry and sounds more more like a true single coil than a standard coil split.
Checking with a multimeter confirms that the coil split is greater than half of the DCR of the humbucker in humbucking mode, but it does not add 4.7k to the DCR. Try it, it's something PRS use in theirs, but I think they use 2k, which for me still sounds too thin.
The exception to this for me is once humbuckers ( as a rule of thumb) are over 11k DCR. I have one set meeting thus criteria and they sound ok just splitting without a resistor, but I do have them splitting via a potentiometer from their respective push pulls for variable split so I can darken the split on demand or make the humbuckers a bit brighter sounding. I find eventgese fully split a bit thin and my variable split set to 1 or 2 on the potentiometer to be the sweet spot.
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Last edited:
Davii
New member
Re: Alnico II Pro
I'll have to look into this further
As for the OP; I've only used A2 Pros/APH-1s with 12 string, having tried a good few others beforehand. That said, I did swap out the neck magnet for an A3 one, as the neck position on that guitar was particularly difficult to sort out.
I'll have to look into this further
As for the OP; I've only used A2 Pros/APH-1s with 12 string, having tried a good few others beforehand. That said, I did swap out the neck magnet for an A3 one, as the neck position on that guitar was particularly difficult to sort out.
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