Pickup sound over time

[cryogenic419]

Got a 20 year old guitar I recently pulled out of storage, hadn't played this thing in 5+ years. Cleaned, oiled, re-strung,setup, etc and plugged in and played. JB/Jazz combo. First thing I noticed is the highs and mids did not seem anywhere near as ice picky as they once did. In fact I even had to tweak some settings to add in some highs and mids.Really noticed it with cleaner tones but higher gain sounds benefitted too. Not a bad sound at all, I'm digging it but this is not the sound of the guitar I put into storage so I'm wondering what changed.

I know over time wood undergoes some changes that affect the sound, and maybe that's all I'm hearing. Do pickups change as well? I seem to remember SD doing something to magnets they were calling "dun-aged" or something along those lines that "aged" the magnet. I'm guessing that's how they antiquity line came to be. Does magnet age play that big of a role in tone, enough that it would be noticeable after 20 years?

 

[Chistopher]

Old strings most likely. A5s don't really age that fast.

 

[jeremy]

unless there is some outside influence, the magnet shouldnt have really changed much. sometimes its just our ears and how we perceive the things we hear

 

[beaubrummels]

If you are using tube amps of similar age that haven't been turned on in 5 years, it's more likely your amp needs to be recapped.

The pickup magnets could only be affected if they were stored very close of a heavy magnetic source. I've read it takes more than 20 years for even a slight change in the magnetic field of those formula bar magnets. The dun-aged thing is really simulating a pickup from a guitar that has been abused and not well taken care of, but now has some kind of magical tone from all the abuse. Antiquities really simulate heavy abuse, like water, dirt, cigarette smoke/ash, rust/oxidation in the parts, etc.

 

[freefrog]

I know over time wood undergoes some changes that affect the sound, and maybe that's all I'm hearing. Do pickups change as well? I seem to remember SD doing something to magnets they were calling "dun-aged" or something along those lines that "aged" the magnet. I'm guessing that's how they antiquity line came to be. Does magnet age play that big of a role in tone, enough that it would be noticeable after 20 years?

You'll find on other forums pics with lab measurements showing that many magnets in guitar pickups don't age at all (in normal conditions).
Now, a (real) L Series Strat that I've periodically in maintenance has rod magnets with a very weak measured Gauss level, even compared to supposedly "aged" magnets.
Why?
I attribute that at keast partly to the alloy used: to me, "dun-aged" magnets are less mimicing the effect of time than the lower efficiency of old mags, made (and charged) in a less precise way than nowadays.

That being said, pickups certainly age: many old Gibson's have broken bobbins (in P90's) because of plastic that time made brittle or warped ones (in humbuckers), because of the pressure of wire wound around soft butyrate. I've even seen coils whose wire was sticking out the edge of bobbins for this reason. Which implies that coils become looser, with a potential effect on tone.
Insulating materials around coil wire and connecting cables also evolve with time. A famous winder explains somewhere that Formvar become more capacitive over decades and can make old Strat PU's warmer sounding. In braided shielded wire used to wire Gibson's, a progressive alteration of cotton insulation (by moisture, for example) can also cause drastic changes in measured parasitic capacitance, shifting down the resonance of humbuckers and making them warmer sounding (as confirmed by Manfred Zollner, German scientist who devoted a PhD to electric guitar)...
Last but not least, corrosion is to take in account. For instance, an old P.A.F. whose magnet and milled keeper bar are oxydized/rusted won't necessarily behave magnetically in the same way that a brand new pickup, for reasons potentially due to a change in "eddy currents" (and according to a phenomenon that one can emulate by putting a thin slice of insulating material between a magnet and a baseplate, IME).

Non limitative list. To sum it up, old pickups have many potential reasons to sound differently when compared to new ones...

 

[Teleplayer]

Better technique and worse hearing could possibly give smoother sounds.

 

[magillver]

+1 on the hearing idea, I know for a fact that I don't have the high frequency perception that I used to have years ago, too many years standing too close to a ride cymbal...