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

[koshikas]

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

Here's the magnets and the magnetometers

labeling and the packaging are a dead giveaway, where the magnets are from

 

[Aceman]

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

OK - not gonna lie. This is pretty awesome idea.

I'd do it again for the sake of pure total awesome, tweak a few things..… But out of the gate, pretty cool idea!

 

[koshikas]

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

i'm pretty sure soundcloud sucked some of the nuances of the tones @Drex got. any alternative cloud sites that we could use to upload clips with less tone suck. the best would be to manually upload WAV or MP3(nooo) files.

 

[CarmenJuandeago]

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

definitely huge difference in a2 vs a5. a4 vs a5 is harder to hear but that probably holds true while playing as well.

It would be interesting to see the same experiment done with a bridge pickup, distorted. try some down picking ala megadeth/metallica and see how a2 vs a5 differs in tightness

 

[iamthesuck]

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

Noticing a few things:
1) I'm surprised at how bright A8 is! truely a weird one...
2) Roughcast seems to be a good mag switch for a pickup with perfect tone but not enough bite
3) A5 sounded like... well just a pickup to me. I think A5 is a well chosen standard, it seems the most versatile from what I heard hear. A4 just seemed boring to my ear
4) A3 and C8 were nice and jangley, but I understand their outputs are very (Polar - LOL) opposite. Good choice to brighten a pickup.
5) A2 was smooth, full sounding (the low mids!) and probably would be my choice of tone.

Excellent demo, most informative demonstration of magnet differences I've ever come across. I'm an engineer so this kind of variable control and full investigation really gets me goin!

 

[iamthesuck]

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

Also (sorry to double post) you could demonstrate comparative output by playing a few chords and splicing all the recordings together so the soundclouding won't affect them

 

[DreX]

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

1) I'm surprised at how bright A8 is! truely a weird one...

It's very powerful. The A-2 through A5 all read about 550 gauss along the edges with the digital magnetometer, while the A8 reads over 1000 and the ceramic reads around 1200, so in that respect they're a lot alike, very loud and touch sensitive, but to my ears the AlNiCo was still rounder than the ceramic.

2) Roughcast seems to be a good mag switch for a pickup with perfect tone but not enough bite
3) A5 sounded like... well just a pickup to me. I think A5 is a well chosen standard, it seems the most versatile from what I heard hear. A4 just seemed boring to my ear
4) A3 and C8 were nice and jangley, but I understand their outputs are very (Polar - LOL) opposite. Good choice to brighten a pickup.
5) A2 was smooth, full sounding (the low mids!) and probably would be my choice of tone.

Excellent demo, most informative demonstration of magnet differences I've ever come across. I'm an engineer so this kind of variable control and full investigation really gets me goin!

I'll do this again totally clean sometime this week, and then again in the bridge. That's a good idea about putting them all in the same clip, I'm not sure if Sound Cloud actually compresses the audio or just normalizes it. That's another interesting thing that can be easily determined though by uploading generated tones at fixed db levels.

 

[iamthesuck]

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

It would be cool to see all the samples together in the same place, maybe even sticky'd once you get all your experimentation done. The final answer on "So what's REALLY the difference with magnets?"

 

[GilmourD]

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

I am immensely interested in this thread but I'm about to fall asleep. Need to read the whole thing tomorrow.

Sent from my VK810 4G using Tapatalk

 

[DreX]

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)?

I didn't, but it was the last thing I did after removing the C8, so that probably left it with stronger residual magnetism than it would have had otherwise. I'll try degaussing it as completely as possible and then test again.

 

[Davii]

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

I didn't, but it was the last thing I did after removing the C8, so that probably left it with stronger residual magnetism than it would have had otherwise. I'll try degaussing it as completely as possible and then test again.

That wasn't a criticism by the way, just surprised at there being anything there in the first place, so it had got me thinking

 

[GilmourD]

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

That wasn't a criticism by the way, just surprised at there being anything there in the first place, so it had got me thinking

There's your "magnet settling".

DreX, is it possible for you (with whatever else you have to do) to put magnets in, let them settle, and measure residual magnetism at set times after removal? Or maybe even measure the field immediately after insertion and at set times afterwards to see if things change?

Still haven't read the whole thread. Just wanted two throw that in there.

Sent from my Moto X 2014 using Tapatalk

 

[Jeffrec]

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

Really nice job!

I liked the A2 best (A2's are my favorite anyway). I could tell a difference between smooth and rough cast magnets, but then again, I'm listening on a computer at work, with lousy speakers. The A-3 sounded the brightest to me for some reason. The others sounded very similar to eachother

 

[GoDrex]

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

The A2 had the "prettiest" tone - something felt lacking from the rest.

btw - like the name

 

[Rex_Rocker]

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

Wow! Exactly what I wanted to hear! Killer shootout.

I'm dead set on ordering both an Alnico 2 and Alnico 4 magnet to see which tames my overly boomy and snappy PAF Pro.

 

[Demanic]

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

The A2 had the "prettiest" tone - something felt lacking from the rest.

btw - like the name

That's the sick thing about the A8. Even though most people say it sounds like it's already going through a drive, it still maintains the AlNiCo sweetness. Albeit quite loudly.

 

[Demanic]

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

Right now I have a UOA5 in the '59 neck in my Schecter Blackjack Baritone. Unbelievably clear, while still having plenty of bottom. Very responsive to the tone knob.

 

[atreidesheir]

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

Great comparison and hats off for the test rig. I am impressed.

 

[Fusion1]

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

I'm still digging the Ceramic over all others.

 

[jtougas]

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

Nice work, DreX!