Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

[DreX]

I made a test rig with a neck '59 so that I could record all the magnets I have on hand. Nothing about the rig changed from magnet to magnet, I just slid one magnet out and slid the next one it.

IMO, the sound clips only tell half the story. It felt different interacting with all of them, like some seemed more or less sensitive than others, or a harder pick attack would have a sharper or softer sound than another magnet. You might hear a subtle difference, but it often seemed less subtle when I was playing the guitar.

Soundcloud auto-normalized the files, so you can't see the relative amplitudes, but the roughcasts appeared to be a bit louder than the smooth magnets on average, and they're all a bit thicker than the polished magnets too. The "no magnet" recording was about 1/10th as loud as the others. The A8 was a bit louder than the C8, but both where about 50% louder than the A2, A3, A4 and A5, and over twice as strong magnetically.

no magnet


A2 smooth


A2 roughcast


A3 smooth


A3 roughcast


A4 smooth


A4 roughcast


A5 smooth


A5 roughcast


A5 unoriented roughcast


A8 roughcast


C8 smooth

 

[BriGuy1968]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

I'll be the first to admit that I don't have a particularly picky ear when it comes to nuances in pickups, but I could certainly hear the difference going from smooth to rough-cast in most of the cases. The rough-cast had a bit more "bite."

As for the other differences... yes, I could hear them. However (and this is where my lack of pickiness comes into play) I couldn't say that I had enough of a preference of one over another that would cause me to decided to make a magnet swap. It's too bad SoundCloud auto-normalized them because the volume differences would have probably brought out the differences better. Nice test... and informative. Thanks!

PS: Out of curiosity (here's where I'm just being too lazy to look it up myself ), what magnet does the '59 come with stock?

 

[DreX]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

Here's one I forgot to post, a fully charged A5 versus a degaussed A5

Charged, gauss peak at north center: 580



Degaussed, guass peak at north center: 180


I measured them at dead center on the north side just to be consistent, but the degaussed A5 is much less even along it's length than the charged A5. The charged A5 shows 530-580 along it's length, where as the degaussed bar is closer to 100 along it's length, only getting up to 180 in the very center. Overall, the degaussed magnet appears to have about only 1/6th the attraction of the charged A5.

 

[DreX]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

PS: Out of curiosity (here's where I'm just being too lazy to look it up myself ), what magnet does the '59 come with stock?

'59 comes stock with an A5

 

[DreX]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

Regarding the "no magnet" mode, according to the magnetometer, the screw heads without any magnet loaded in read 27 south max and the slugs read 14 north max, so there's apparently some residual magnetism there. I'm not sure how much sound "no magnet" mode would make if the screws and slugs with completely deguassed, but you can get an idea what direction the tone is headed as the magnetism decreases, all highs, no mids or bass.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

This is interesting. I have a suspicion what SoundCloud does to the samples is significantly masking the actual audible differences, just based on my experience uploading my own music to SoundCloud. But I can detect some subtle differences in the sample worth looking into on my own. Thanks for doing all that.

I'm interested to see the test rig and how you changed magnets without having to redo the setup.

 

[DreX]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

This is the Cabronita with the unusual wood anomalies on the neck.

Here's the magnets and the magnetometers

 

[BriGuy1968]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

That's pretty cool... good idea! [emoji41]


[emoji450]Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk [emoji441]

 

[Securb]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

Dre this is pretty cool. I am guessing you recorded direct to a pc? I would be interested to hear how they breakup various amps. The A8 sounded a lot cleaner and smoother than I would expect it to sound.

Nice work.

 

[DreX]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

Thanks, this was sort of a trial run. I can do the whole thing again in half the time next time around. I used the on board "clean" amp emulator of an ME-80, since through an amp is the context everyone is used to hearing pickups as opposed to direct line in, where every recording would be bright and raspy, but maybe that would have highlighted the differences better. Next time I could do the same thing with a spare JB over the bridge and do 100% clean recordings. If I can think up a way to have a strumming arm graze the strings in a uniform fashion, I'll do that too, so that the physical input aspect will be the same for every one.

 

[DreX]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

Also those metal pieces are from Eitech America. Their prices are an astronomical rip off, but there was a lot of things I wanted to do with them so I bit the bullet.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

This demonstration illustrates what blueman335 is always banging on about with magnet swaps.

If we accept the SH-1n '59 as a reference pickup, it can - and should - sound different, according to the host instrument. If/when the SH-1n appears unsuitable in a specific host guitar, it ought to be possible to assess what can be improved and select the appropriate bar magnet to achieve the desired result.

 

[DreX]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

I think the magnet can be a good cheap remedy to pickup voicing problems, the only problem is knowing whether the magnet change will be too much or not enough, because the differences between them to be either subtle or dramatic. I can tell the A2 is definitely the darkest/roundest of the bunch, but not the weakest either. It's kind of punchy. The AlNiCo 8 seems like a good way to make a pickup brighter and louder, but it can be too much. It's just slightly softer than the ceramic bar, and they both increase the sensitivity and output of the pickup dramatically. I need to spend more time with the A3, A4 and A5 to get a better handle on the differences, it's seems to be a lot more subtle there, which makes me wonder if that's why Seymour Duncan seems to pass on them. I'll redo these soon without the amp simulation and hopefully with a strumming device, if I can work one out.

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

Nicely done Drex!

Dre this is pretty cool. I am guessing you recorded direct to a pc? I would be interested to hear how they breakup various amps. The A8 sounded a lot cleaner and smoother than I would expect it to sound.

Nice work.

+1 To this, I did not expect the A8 to be that clean and smooth.

Again, nicely done Drex!

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

We interrupt this threadcast for a dumb but necessary question.

Drex. Please confirm that the neck position pickup of the Telecaster was removed whilst your pickup test rig was in use.



EDIT - For that matter, please confirm that the bridge position pickup was also removed.

Any minute now, we'll get Frank Falbo, explaining why having magnetic flux fields above and below the strings alters their excursion paths.

 

[DreX]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

Yes, the guitar had/has no pickups in it. I took the bridge out too for the sake of the no magnet test, it's all residual magnetism.

 

[Archer250]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

DAMN! That apparatus is ingenious.

 

[DreX]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

Two more caveats, in case it's not apparent, this is "no load" since I'm connecting the pickup with alligator clips, and there's little cable capacitance because the shielded portion is only three feet long, so these should all be a somewhat brighter than if they were mounted in a guitar.

 

[Davii]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

Out of interest, did you measure the residual magnetism after each change? I'm wondering about what happens when you drop back down to a weaker magnet; Is there a higher residual magnetism from the stronger one, thereby changing how the weaker one sounds (compared to how it would have, had the stronger magnet not have been in situ)?

 

[VHTJay]

Re: Sound clips of a Seymour Duncan '59 Neck with various magnets

Awesome work Drex!